


That Old Sweet Feeling

by avislightwing



Series: We Will Go Dancing [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: ADHD, Accidental Plot, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Commitment Arc, Depersonalization Disorder, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hijinks & Shenanigans, I would like to reiterate the rarepair hell tag, Mild Gore, Nadiya Jones is the love of my life, Nicknames, No one is cishet, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Nonbinary Character, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, RAREPAIR! HELL! NOW!, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Swearing (a lot of it), Team as Family, Trans Character, Update: Getting Gayer, Vomiting, anyways this is a thing, both of those should be plural, got real dark real fast kids WHOOPS, just a little bit, tagging some things in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-02-13 23:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 43,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12994620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: The wonder triplets plus their Christian supervillain hacker girl are on the run. Fun times, romance, and team bonding. Also unbelievable cuteness and maybe a touch of angst.EDIT: the angst got out of control, save yourselves





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [So What Now?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908955) by [freedomfightsback](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freedomfightsback/pseuds/freedomfightsback). 



> I was going to wait until I'd relistened to TAZ: Commitment before posting this, but hey, what the hell. I'm going to try to be updating this at least somewhat more regularly than my normal schedule of... not a schedule.

By Nadiya’s count, it had been nine days since she’d first been told she landed the position at the Do-Good Fellowship. Five days since they had arrived at the ‘Berg via skimmer. Four since she’d gained what could broadly be labelled “superpowers” and arrested a seditionist – seditioner? whatever. Two since she and her companions (Remy, Kardala, and Mary Sage) had had to get the heck out of Dodge to avoid going from scientist to experiment.

“Could you _please_ keep it down?” she said in the most annoyed voice she could possibly manage. “I’m trying to _drive_.”

“I said I’d do it,” Mary Sage complained from the passenger seat.

“You’re, like, a religious wacko, and that doesn’t even factor into the top ten reasons you aren’t driving,” Nadiya snapped back.

“What does religion have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Nadiya replied cryptically, jerking the steering wheel to the left and narrowly avoiding a bright yellow _SCHOOL ZONE_ sign. “Also, you may or may not still have a concussion.”

Nadiya had taken the wheel out of necessity. Mary Sage had been coughing up blood, Remy said he’d failed his driver’s test five times, and Kardala (though she admitted Irene could drive, and drive well) declared that she cared not for the so-called _rules_ and had run three red lights before Nadiya had banished her to the backseat. Nadiya technically had a license. She did. It was just that she hadn’t used it in, what, six years? Like she was spending her hard-earned cash on a gas-guzzling car when she had a faculty bus pass.

“I thought we’d decided my head was fine,” Mary Sage groused, slumping down in her seat. Her round, green-framed glasses were perched on the end of her up-tipped nose, the close-set freckles on her arms blending into a veritable mass of orange-brown at her folded arms, her hair just as red and wild as it had been in Halleluland.

“Your head is, in any and all ways, not fine,” Nadiya stated, thoughts still on Mary Sage’s hair. Sure, they were on the run, but would it kill her to use Remy’s pick?

Speaking of Remy, he was practically bouncing again, in a way that made the whole car shake now that he had kinetic energy built into his cells – or something like that. She hadn’t exactly had time to parse what the fuck was going on with the stimplants yet, what with being on the run. “Are we almost there?” he asked for the fifth time in the hour.

Nadiya groaned. “Ask Kardala.”

“The cabin is still many leagues away,” Kardala told the car at large. _Large_ was right, Nadiya thought. They had, erm, commandeered the biggest car they could find on such short notice, a ridiculous exhaust-spewing distastefully off-white Range Rover, and Kardala’s head was still skimming the ceiling. Nadiya had delicately suggested Kardala shift into her “Irene prison” for the duration of the drive, but Kardala had outright refused. This also had the effect of squishing Mary Sage practically against the dashboard so Kardala had enough legroom. “Into the mountains.”

“Can’t you let Irene out for, like, five minutes so she can give me better directions?” Kardala had drawn a path on a map Nadiya had grabbed once they’d reached Kansas, but it was very… vague. Mostly, she’d been going on Kardala’s intuitions, which was a lot of Kardala pointing and Nadiya having to make hairpin turns at the absolute last minute.

“Kardala does not submit to anything or anyone –” Kardala started, but was interrupted by Remy.

“Stop! Stopstopstop.”

Nadiya hit the brakes, hard, skidding to the side of the street, and turned in her seat to glare at Remy. “What.”

“7-Eleven! Gotta get me some Dew.” Remy was out of the door and halfway to the convenience store before Nadiya had even shut the engine off.

“I, too, would like to partake of the Dew of which he speaks,” Kardala pronounced, unwedging herself from the backseat. “Do you know if the 7-Eleven has _strombolis_?”

“They probably have hot dogs,” Mary Sage said. “Dammit. I was super hoping for, like, something that wasn’t microwaveable. Whatever.”

Nadiya thought about attempting to actually park the Range Rover, then decided that it, unlike most things, was probably beyond her ability, so she shut the engine off. “I guess we do need supplies. You coming?”

“Might as well.” Mary Sage slammed her seat back, stretched her legs with a groan, and got out of the car. “You got any cash?”

“I spent the last of it yesterday, but I have my credit card –”

“Uh, no.” Mary Sage cut her off. “That’s how they getcha. They can track that shit, you know. It’s fine, whatever, I got it.”

Nadiya rolled her eyes and got out of the car, following Mary Sage over to the 7-Eleven. More specifically, to the ATM outside. “Gimme a sec.” Mary Sage squinched her eyes almost shut. “Cameras disabled.” Then, suddenly, the ATM whirred and bills started pouring out of the slot.

“Nice,” Nadiya said in appreciation, gathering up the large stack of twenties and stuffing them into a pocket in her vest.

Mary Sage unsquinched her eyes and shrugged. “’T’s what Space Cadet does,” she said. “I guess. Oh, shit.”

The last statement was directed into the store, where both of them could see their companions causing what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a ruckus.

Nadiya stormed in. “Kardala! What the fuck?”

“This little man is refusing Kardala her hot dogs!” Kardala roared, pointing in indignation at the cashier, who was cowering behind the counter.

Nadiya stepped up and slapped a few twenties on the counter. “Five hot dogs enough?” she snapped at Kardala.

Kardala glowered. “That will be sufficient for now.”

“I got my Dew!” Remy bounced to the counter and set down a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. “Gotta get that good good juice!”

“Please never say that again,” Nadiya said. “Mary? Anything for you?”

Mary Sage plopped three bags of Ruffles, a package of beef jerky, and a Diet Coke onto the counter. Nadiya nodded. “So, all of that, and an extra-large black coffee,” she told the still-cowering cashier. When he didn’t respond, she snapped her fingers in his face. “Hey. Hey. Get it together.” Mary Sage snickered from beside her.

That seemed to jolt the cashier from his Kardala-induced shock. “Y-yeah, sure, sorry,” he stammered, scanning the items at what could only be described as the speed of light and shoving a small stack of hot dogs into Kardala’s hands and a cup of coffee into Nadiya’s.

Nadiya nodded briskly, handed over the appropriate amount of inappropriately obtained twenty-dollar bills, and led the way out of the 7-Eleven. They had almost reached the Range Rover again when Mary Sage froze, her hands clenching on her bags of Ruffles. “Shit! He’s calling the feds!” She whirled around, and they could see through the door as the cashier’s phone exploded in his hand.

Remy’s eyes were very wide. “Did it go through?”

“I think so. We gotta go!” Ignoring Nadiya’s protests, Mary Sage commandeered the driver’s seat. “Everyone in!”

They all piled in the car, and Kardala had barely closed the door when the engine roared to life and Mary Sage slammed down on the gas pedal. Nadiya swore, clutching the seat. “At least let us have a second to buckle in if you’re going to drive like a maniac!”

“No time!” Mary Sage swerved around a corner, and Nadiya was pretty sure the car went up on two wheels. “They’ll be here any second!”

“Aw, c’mon,” Remy said from where he was half-squished against Kardala. “Now you’re just being paranoid. Even they can’t –” He was interrupted by the sound of helicopter blades. “I guess they can. Uh. How?”

“They must’ve been monitoring the channels. We’re not going to be able to outrun ‘em, and I can’t control copters.” Mary Sage glanced at Nadiya – and _grinned_. “Looks like we’re going to have to fight. Ready for that, Reed Richards?”

Nadiya groaned. “Fuck you, Space Cadet.”

Remy wrenched his Mountain Dew open and chugged half of it. “WOO! Time to blow stuff up!” he said, giving his head a quick shake, his gaze more focused than before. “Kardala, you wanna blow stuff up?”

“Kardala does indeed!”

The two of them were out of the car before Nadiya could suggest that maybe, _maybe_ , they could come up with a plan. “We gotta go after them,” Mary Sage said. “That copter’s more than a hundred yards away, and I just bet they’re useless without their powers, right?”

“You have no idea.” Nadiya stumbled out of the passenger side of the Range Rover, got her footing, and changed her left hand into a blade. “Are _you_ ready, Gospel Girl?”

“That’s worse than Space Cadet.” But Mary Sage grinned again. “Hell, yeah. Let’s fuck up the feds.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya fights a helicopter. Remy is very concerned. Mary Sage takes the wheel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaaaat? An update ON TIME? IN JUST A WEEK? Impossible! And yet, here it is.
> 
> Also, my favorite girl Lucretia gets a nod because hey, why not?

Fucking up the feds was easier said than done.

“Jeez Louise!” Mary Sage hit the deck as a flurry of tranquilizer darts (or what they hoped were tranquilizer darts) flew over her head. “They aren’t pulling punches!”

“Did you just say _jeez louise_?” Nadiya said incredulously, gazed fixed on the helicopter as she tried to calculate whether Kardala could throw her hard enough that she could puncture a hole in the side of it but accurately enough that she wouldn’t be shredded by the blades.

“That’s what you’re worried about right now? Not the fact that your crazy scary girlfriend is being shot at?”

“My _what?_ ”

“Not me, dimwit. Her.” Mary Sage picked herself up and pointed at Kardala.

“She’s not my – where did you even get that idea? Doesn’t matter. She needs to throw me at the helicopter,” Nadiya decided, and, ignoring Mary Sage’s squawk of surprise, ran over to where Remy and Kardala holding their ground.

“Ah, the demon joins us!” Kardala said. She was rubbing her hands together, and blue sparks of electricity were making her hair stand on end.

“Yep, here I am, the demon,” Nadiya agreed. “Kardala. Could you throw me against the helicopter?”

Kardala looked up at the helicopter, then back at Nadiya, and lit up. “Certainly! Do you wish to make yourself pointy and rip it apart? Kardala approves!”

“Yes, exactly. I would prefer _not_ to be electrified or shredded, though, so be _careful_ , and also turn your lightning off,” Nadiya said. She didn’t want to test her new skin’s immunity to electricity.

“Of course!” Kardala picked Nadiya up with surprising ease, even considering her size.

“Nadiya, what are you doing?” Remy yelped, dodging out of the way of another flurry of darts so quickly she could barely see him.

“Bringing down a helicopter. Kardala, pull!”

It wasn’t that Nadiya didn’t think it would work – if anyone could pull this off, it was a goddess – but it was still a disconcerting feeling to be flying through the air towards a hovering helicopter. At the last second, she sharpened the edges of her outstretched blade-arms to the finest edge possible – and then she hit it.

It was a bit, she thought, like colliding with the side of a building, if the building was hanging in midair. But the metal gave way, and there she was, hanging off the door. She couldn’t hear anything over the steady sound of the helicopter blades, but from the way the vehicle was pitching, she had a feeling the pilot knew they had an uninvited passenger. Gritting her teeth, her hands went serrated and carved into the door, and she hauled herself in through the hole she’d made. She stumbled, almost falling over, as the helicopter tilted violently to the right, then back to the left. “Oh, no you don’t,” she snarled, reaching into the cockpit and grabbing the pilot’s collar, leveling a blade to his throat. “Set this thing down right now!” she yelled. He shrugged, and she swore; the noise, dammit, he couldn’t hear her. How to – _yes,_ that was it.

Without letting go of the pilot, she pulled out the phone Remy had hack-proofed (or so he said) for her, and sent a message into Mary Sage’s frequency:  _Tell the pilot to land the helicopter!_

After a second, she got back _UR A FUCKIN IDIOT YA KNOW THAT RIGHT FINE WHATEVER SPACE CADET HAS TO DO EVERYTHING_.

Sure enough, after a moment, the pilot’s eyes went wide, and he nodded emphatically. The helicopter started descending a moment later. It landed with a jolt that almost caused Nadiya to give the pilot the impromptu close shave she’d been threatening, but luckily, she blunted the edge in time. She glanced down at her phone again, to let Mary Sage know all was well, and –

She swore as she read the message:  _GET THE FUCK OUTTA THERE KARDALA’S GOING TO BLOW IT UP_. Without thinking, she grabbed the pilot by the collar, swung a hammer fist through the front windshield, and dove out.

Just in time. She glanced back to see a huge, blue-white lightning bolt engulf the helicopter, and then she was being thrown backwards by the resulting explosion.

“Hey, you’re alive.”

“Takes more than that to kill Reed Richards,” Nadiya mumbled, her head spinning.

“Remy’s freakin’ out on Kardala.” Nadiya’s vision – and head – cleared enough that she could make out _orange_. “He thinks she killed you. Kardala’s saying she would be back in her Irene prison if you were dead. It’s a shitshow. Also, we gotta get going before feds show up.”

Nadiya sat up. Mary Sage was standing over her, glasses dotted with soot and eyes rolling back so far in her head that it looked like she was possessed. “What happened to the pilot?”

Mary Sage pointed. The man was in a heap a couple feet away. “Don’t think he’s dead, but if he is, who cares? C’mon.” She took hold of one of Nadiya’s arms and hauled her to her feet. “Jeez,” she complained. “Help me out a little here.”

Nadiya shoved her away. “I’m fine,” she snapped, brushing herself off with quick movements.

 

The minute they came back within sight, Remy very nearly tackled her. “You’re alive! Hell yeah! I thought that explosion had killed you for sure!”

“I told the little man, Kardala only kills what she wishes dead, but he would not listen,” Kardala said, shaking her head at Remy’s apparent foolishness. “I also told him a little bit of explosion would not kill a demon. He would not listen to that either.”

“Well, I’m fine, so we should go.” Nadiya made for the driver’s seat, but she was blocked by Mary Sage. “ _What_ do you think you’re doing.”

“‘You probably have a concussion,’” Mary Sage said, in a truly terrible imitation of Nadiya’s voice. “‘You’re bleeding. You’d be a hazard on the road.’”

Nadiya reached up and felt her head. Sure enough, she was bleeding. “Oh, come on, you don’t seriously mean –”

Mary Sage smiled triumphantly. “I get driving privileges now. Suck it.” And she slid into the driver’s seat. “Everyone in, and buckle up, I guess, since y’all were such dipshits about it last time.”

Nadiya, as the tallest of the not-Kardala members of their little gang, was even more squished against the dashboard than Mary Sage had been, and they hadn’t even been driving for fifteen minutes when Mary Sage turned on the Christian radio station and refused to shut it off.

“Always positive, always encouraging!” the radio chirped.

“Fuck off,” Nadiya snapped at it.

As Mary Sage glanced at her and burst into a storm of giggles, Nadiya slumped even lower in her seat.

This, she decided, was the nightmare scenario.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene may be more hardcore than anyone realized. Kardala gives some sage advice. Mary Sage needs a shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I'll update every week!  
> Me now: *shows up two weeks late with fluff* uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
> 
> In all seriousness, I am very sorry this is so late, but hey, there was Christmas and New Year's and stuff, and my girls were being Very Difficult to write. But here's this now, and hopefully I'll get back on schedule!
> 
> Also, for reference, there's some great art that I have definitely used as inspiration - art of Nadiya [here](http://midnigtartist.tumblr.com/post/167637956358/hatsforhouseelves-saidcan-i-get-a-uhhhhhhhhh) and [here](http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/post/166589734124/now-that-you-mention-it-it-is-important-that-i-get), and art of Mary Sage (well, plus the Wonder Triplets, but this is 100% my Mary) [here](http://caitercates.tumblr.com/post/167957657680/i-am-going-to-miss-them-so-much-why-did-this)!

They didn’t get to the cabin until after the sun had set. As it turned out, without the lights of a city nearby, the world was a pretty dark place, quite literally. Nadiya wouldn’t know. She doesn’t do _camping_.

Irene, apparently, did.

Kardala told them all about it as she unloaded the car and brought some firewood inside and (a bit reluctantly) carried a fast-asleep Remy inside and dumped him on the couch. “Irene came here with her family even when she was a little girl,” she explained, taking ten cans of tuna out of a cabinet and stacking them on the counter. “She particularly enjoyed when they left the cabin and slept in a tent.” Kardala smiled, a warm, terrifying expression, with something like pride.

“Well, thank God there’s a cabin,” Mary Sage grumbled. “I’ve been sleeping in tents and shit for weeks. So done.”

“Kardala will take this room!” Kardala proclaimed, dropping her pack onto a large bed in one of the two rooms. “And the little man shall remain on the couch, where Kardala put him!”

Slowly, Nadiya peered into the remaining bedroom. One bed. Right.

Her eyes met Mary Sage’s muddy ones. “I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

“Well, neither am I,” Mary Sage said. “So suck it up, Reed Richards.”

“It’s not like I care. I’m not falling asleep for a while, anyways,” Nadiya snapped, flicking a glance at her watch. Ten-thirty. She usually wasn’t in bed until two.

“Whatever. Just don’t wake me up when you come in. I’m beat.”

Nadiya winced as a massive hand clapped her on the shoulder. “Even demons need sleep!” Kardala remarked. “Especially after blowing up helicopters!”

“Fuck off,” Nadiya mumbled, but without much venom. They _had_ been on the move for three days straight, most of which she spent driving and drinking shitty gas station coffee. With a loud groan, so both Kardala and Mary Sage would know how much she hated this, she stepped into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“Good choice. You look like shit,” Mary Sage said.

“Can we _not?_ ” Nadiya said, yanking her bag open and pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a faded t-shirt that said _INNOVATIONS IN BIOENGINEERING CONFERENCE:  SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH_. “There’s a bed. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. End of story.”

“Sure, Richards.” Mary Sage started humming something that sounded unfortunately like one of the songs the Christian station had played every five minutes on their car ride up.

For a moment, Nadiya had a desperate internal struggle which involved her imagining what it would be like to try out the sleeper hold she’d learned in self-defense on Mary Sage, then decided that it would be too much work. So instead, she turned around and changed at what she, a scientist, might well describe as the speed of light. That is, at approximately the speed of a 7-Eleven minimum-wage worker fueled by deathly fear of Kardala.

When she turned around, there was Mary Sage, smirking. Still fully dressed. “What, you afraid I’m gonna look?”

Nadiya felt her ears heat. “Oh, you wish, Gospel Girl.”

Mary Sage hummed a few more bars of her song and started pulling her vest off. “Hey, don’t suppose you have any extra PJ’s in your bag?”

Wordlessly, Nadiya pulled out another t-shirt – this one said _BIOPHYSICAL ENGINEERING INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION MEET-UP 2014_ – and tossed it to Mary Sage. “I only have the one pair of sweats, though.”

“Don’t like wearing pants to bed, anyways.” Then, before Nadiya could do more than open her mouth indignantly, Mary Sage pulled off her grimy green-and-yellow flannel shirt, the even grimier white tank under it, and her faded bootcut jeans.

 _Oh,_ Nadiya thought. _Boobs._ She hadn’t thought about those in a while, and she definitely hadn’t thought about Mary Sage having them before now. But she definitely did, and Nadiya was definitely staring, and she should probably look away now.

Mary Sage pulled Nadiya’s shirt over her head. She was at least five inches shorter than Nadiya was, so the shirt came down to her mid-thigh (they’d only had size large left when Nadiya had gotten to the front of the line). Nadiya jerked her head away and busied herself rummaging in her bag, pulling out earplugs and a satin face mask.

“Wow, fancy, aintcha?” Mary Sage commented, taking off her glasses and squinting in Nadiya’s general direction. Her eyes looked markedly bigger without them – her prescription must be ridiculous.

“No, I have insomnia,” Nadiya said.

There was a moment of awkward silence. “Shit. Sorry,” Mary Sage after a minute, and almost sounded like she meant it. “That sucks.”

Nadiya shrugged, slipping the sleep mask on and snapping the elastic. “Usually I just work until I fall asleep. You’d be surprised how much you can get written on biopolymers from ten to two.”

“Well, good thing you have the earplugs, because I snore, and if I was a bettin’ gal, I’d say Kardala does too,” Mary Sage said, hopping into the bed and making herself comfortable. “Go ahead and kick me if it gets too loud, but I’ve been known to punch people in my sleep, so watch out.”

Nadiya groaned, but got into the bed as well and stuck one of her earplugs in. “As long as you stay on your side of the bed,” she said.

Mary Sage yawned hugely, her red hair spread out on the pillow like a demonic halo. “Reminds me of Bible camp.”

Despite herself, Nadiya raised an eyebrow, still propped up on one elbow. “Bible camp?”

“Yeah, when I was a kid. A week or two in the mountains with a bunch of other church kids crammed into shitty cabins, eating M&M’s and doing trust falls and singing Kumbaya. You ever go?”

“No, but I was a Girl Scout, and it sounds pretty similar,” Nadiya admitted.

“What, really?” Mary Sage snickered. “You, standing outside Albertson’s, getting people to buy Thin Mints?”

“I was better at getting badges. But I did go to camp a time or two, and it sounds pretty similar to Bible camp,” Nadiya said.

“As in, boring as shit?” Mary Sage rolled her eyes, then closed them. “Wasn’t all bad, though. Had my first kiss in the supplies cabin when I was twelve. Ruthie Brennan. So, hey.”

Nadiya laughed, then stopped in surprise. Was she… actually enjoying Mary Sage’s company? Surely not. “Yeah. Not all bad.”

Mary Sage laughed too. “You know what, Reed Richards? You’re not all bad. I’m glad I didn’t skewer you with my Goliath robot.”

“Yeah, I’m glad too.” Nadiya stuck in her other earplug and laid down, reaching out to switch off the bedside lamp. “Night, Space Cadet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's my very personal headcanon that the only t-shirts Nadiya owns are the ones she gets free from conferences
> 
> and also that "Sarcastic? Me? Never" shirt in the art linked above


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary Sage gets up close and personal. Remy shows off his breakfast skills. Kardala leads the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks at posting schedule* hmm I'm two weeks late again. grad school is, how you say, a bitch. Good news is I should have a chapter up next week as well because it's already mostly written!
> 
> Also, I know I don't really reply to comments, but rest assured I read every single one of them and treasure them. <3 They fuel me. Like Mountain Dew fuels Remy.

Mary hadn’t been kidding about the snoring.

Nadiya woke up, bleary-eyed and grumpy, just as the sun was beginning to peek through the cracks in the curtains. It took her a minute and taking off her earplugs and sleep mask to process the fact that she had a double armful of snoozing Mary Sage, who had definitely not stayed on her side of the bed.

Nadiya twitched, about to shove Mary Sage off her (and possibly off the bed – that sounded good), but Mary made a soft, sleepy sound and snuggled closer, cheek pressed against Nadiya’s collarbone. Her hair was absolutely everywhere, and before she could think twice, Nadiya had reached up and touched it. Tangled (and a bit greasy – ew) as it was, it was surprisingly soft.

“Morning,” Mary Sage said, her voice muffled against Nadiya’s t-shirt.

Nadiya jerked her hand away. “Morning. Bit snuggly, aren’t you?” she said as acidly as she could manage.

“Got cold. Colorado’s stupid. Miss Florida.” Mary Sage blinked up at Nadiya. Her whole face was squinched up, from her brackish eyes to her snub nose to her cherub mouth. “Jeez, that was more sleep than I’ve gotten in _ages_. Nice to have a fuckin’… bed, ya know.”

“Same,” Nadiya admitted. She still had half a mind to push Mary Sage onto the floor, but somehow it was suddenly too much trouble. _Mary_ was too much trouble, she thought, remembering she had the same reaction when wondering whether to put Mary in a sleeper hold the night before. “Shouldn’t you get up and take a shower or something?”

“You don’t smell exactly like roses either, sunshine,” Mary Sage grumbled, making no effort to untangle her limbs from Nadiya’s.

Now that Nadiya was paying attention, Mary Sage didn’t exactly smell bad – at least under the layer of went-on-a-cross-country-road-trip that they’d all sort of gotten used to over the past few days. What she smelled like was Florida, or what Nadiya associated with Florida:  over-chlorinated pools and sharp citrus and something indiscernible that Nadiya categorized as _tourism_. “Then I should get up and take a shower,” Nadiya countered.

“Oh, re- _lax_. Man, this is feeling more like Bible camp all the time.”

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and the large and impressive form of Kardala was framed in the doorway. “Demon! Mary Sage! The sun is up, and so am I!” she boomed.

Nadiya and Mary Sage both started badly, Mary swearing up a storm as they managed to get on opposite sides of the bed as quickly as possible. Mary Sage fumbled her glasses on and glared at Kardala. “Jeez _Louise_ , Kardala. Do you gotta?”

“I must!” she asserted. “Besides, the little man said you would be upset if we ate all the tuna fish and Ruffles. I do enjoy the Ruffles. Also, there is coffee.”

“You said the magic words.” Nadiya climbed out of bed and stretched, her back cracking. “I am definitely going to take a shower first, though.”

“I hate fish,” Mary Sage whined. “I’m havin’ Ruffles and Diet Coke for breakfast.”

“Do not worry, Mary Sage of the robot angels,” Kardala said in what Nadiya thought was supposed to be a comforting way. “Later on the demon and I shall go foraging, and obtain more supplies. Better ones! You have not lived until you have tasted Colorado venison!”

Nadiya gagged. “Yeah, not happening, Kardala. Space Cadet, if you are not in that shower within _two minutes_ of me exiting it, I will take your dirty socks and stuff them –”

“Where the sun don’t shine, I got it,” Mary Sage said, clambering out of the bed as well. “We should never have ditched that boat with the magic sandwiches.”

“You are a scientist, Mary fucking Sage, and you know perfectly well neither the boat nor the sandwiches were magic,” Nadiya informed Mary, with the coldest aplomb she could summon, before gathering her clothes and stalking into the bathroom.

She would’ve stayed in the shower until it ran icy if she wasn’t worried that cold water would dissuade Mary Sage from even stepping foot in the bathroom. Summarily, she washed her hair with the floral-scented shampoo she found (must’ve been Irene’s), dressed, and headed back into the common room, her hair still damp. “You’re up,” she told Mary, throwing a towel at her.

“You don’t have to save hot water, I already showered and Kardala says she doesn’t need to,” Remy said, pouring himself what looked to be at least his second cup of coffee. “Also, there’s no Wi-Fi out here, did you know?”

“I figured. Should be harder to track, then, right?”

“Yeah.” Remy still looked a bit off-put. “Kardala said she’s taking you hunting and not me because you’re Kirby. Well, she didn’t say it like that, but that’s what she meant. Why didn’t I get heat vision? I totally should have gotten heat vision. Dammit. D’you want any coffee? There’s not much food except canned shit, but there’s loads of coffee.”

Nadiya fished a mug out of the cabinet and poured herself as much coffee would fit into it. “Sugar?”

“In the cabinet.  You didn’t put sugar in your coffee yesterday.”

“Not even sugar could’ve helped that sludge.” Nadiya stirred a few spoonfuls of sugar into her mug and took a suspicious sip. “Actually, this isn’t bad.”

“I’m good at coffee,” Remy said with a shrug. “Caffeine keeps me on the straight and narrow. Tuna’s on the counter if you want some. There aren’t any crackers, but we still got some Ruffles left, the combo’s not bad.”

Nadiya was halfway through more breakfast than she usually had over the course of a month when Mary made her reappearance. She, too, smelled like Irene’s shampoo, and her hair was not so much damp as it was dripping onto the floor. “Hey, Remy,” she said, dropping into the third chair and grabbing the bag of Ruffles. “How was the couch?”

“Way comfy,” he said. “How was the bed?”

“’Bout the same.”

“She snores,” Nadiya put in. “So, do we have any sort of… game plan? Or are we just going to stay in this cabin for, oh, the rest of our lives?”

“Never fear, demon!” Kardala said, ignoring Nadiya’s muttered _stop calling me that for fuck’s sake_. “We shall remain here as long as need be, and when the government has forgotten our existence, we shall return and begin our lives anew!”

“That’s…” Nadiya blinked. “Not terrible, I guess. Do you really think that’ll work?”

“I think so,” Remy said with a shrug. “They probably won’t want to waste more resources. They have King Dick and whatsherface – Martine? – so they probably have all the info they need on our powers.”

“Shit.” Nadiya set her mug down. “My research. If they get their hands on that, I’m going to be pissed. The patents are still pending for pretty much everything.”

“A small price to pay for keeping our powers,” Kardala pointed out. “And me not turning back into Irene.” Nadiya noticed with some interest that this was the first time she hadn’t referred to Irene as a prison.

“You got a point,” Mary Sage said. “Sucks, though. I’m not gonna be much help out here unless you want a possessed toaster.”

“The toaster may remain unpossessed,” Kardala said graciously. “I’m sure we shall find a use for you, worry not. Demon! Shall we?” She gestured at the door.

Nadiya groaned. “Already? The sun’s barely up.”

“The sun,” Kardala stated, “has been above the horizon for ninety-six minutes. That is plenty of time. I must take time to refamiliarize myself with this forest, as Irene unfortunately did not believe committing the presence of edible plants and possible threats to memory was the top priority it certainly is. Do you not agree?”

“Uh, sure. Fine, fine. Remy, Space Cadet, you good here?”

“We have a Bible and a pack of cards. Sure, why not,” Mary Sage said, her hair now dripping onto the table.

“We’ll bond!” Remy said with a smile.

“Then we’ll see you later, I guess,” Nadiya said, pulling on her sweater and shoes. “Next time, though, one of you is definitely going and I’m staying here.”

“Hey,” Mary Sage said suddenly. “Don’t go too far. Stay within range, y’know?”

“Of course,” Kardala responded immediately. “I wish to stay in my true form for our expedition. Demon?”

“It’s Nadiya, or Dr. Jones,” Nadiya snapped.

Kardala blinked, her glowing eyes widened in surprise. “Nadiya, then,” she said after a moment.

Nadiya hadn’t expected that to work. “Let’s go,” she said abruptly.

“Don’t let a bear eat you. We need you chuckleheads,” Mary Sage called after them, and then the door closed and locked, and Nadiya was alone with Kardala in a forest in the Rocky Mountains.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kardala makes a realization. Nadiya sums up. Remy has a genius idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic... is moving so much slower than I thought it would oops. When I say slow burn, by golly, I mean slow burn.
> 
> Anyways, here's an update on schedule! Please leave kudos/comments if you like it!

To say Nadiya was out of her element would be an understatement.

“ _Fuck_. Shit, why are there so many plants that have thorns?” Nadiya swore, untangling herself from yet another bramble patch.

Kardala picked her up bodily and replaced her in a clear spot. “It is not that there are many, but that you are good at finding them,” she informed Nadiya with a frown. “Perhaps I should have brought the little man instead.”

“Names, Kardala, names. The kid’s Remy.”

“Kid?” Kardala looked Nadiya over. “Are you not also a _kid?_ ”

“I’m twenty-five, I think I –”

“How old is the – is Remy, then?” Kardala challenged.

Nadiya hesitated. She hadn’t thought about it. “Probably older than that,” she muttered. “Okay, fine, he’s not a kid.”

“I do not understand your obsession with names,” Kardala remarked, “especially because you do not care about calling Mary Sage by her name.”

“That’s different,” Nadiya said.

“How?”

“It just is,” Nadiya snapped. “It’s like – it’s nicknames, right? Like, Mary chose Space Cadet as a name, right? She calls herself that sometimes, like you call yourself Kardala.”

Kardala thought that through. “And Gospel Girl?”

“It’s teasing! I guess! Can we just get this over with?”

Kardala lit up in sudden understanding. “Ah, I see. It all begins to make sense. You and Mary Sage –”

And then there was a shift, and whatever Kardala was going to say seemed to catch in her throat. Then she shuddered, and the air around her seemed to ripple, and quite suddenly Irene was standing in front of Nadiya.

“What,” Irene said faintly, “the hell is going on now?”

“We… must’ve gone too far out…” Nadiya said slowly. But they hadn’t been moving when Kardala shifted, and Kardala would’ve been careful not to go too far. “Shit. Oh, _shit_. We have to get back, something’s wrong –”

“Where are we? Are we in Colorado?” Irene looked around at the forest dazedly, and stumbled into a tree, leaning heavily against it. “I’m sorry, just give me a _moment_.”

“There’s really no time for that, I’ll explain later, can you get us back to the cabin?”

“The – cabin?”

“Yeah, your cabin. Your family’s cabin, I guess. That’s where we’re staying. _Please_ tell me we’re not lost in the forest.”

“Um. Let’s see.” Irene scanned the trees. “Do you have a compass?”

“No! Kardala’s just super good at directions, I guess!”

“Right. Um.” Irene squinted through the trees at the sun, then turned and pointed behind Nadiya. “We need to go that way.”

“All right, let’s go.”

It took them nearly an hour to get back to the cabin, and when they finally arrived in the clearing, Nadiya froze.

“Well,” Irene said. “This… isn’t how you left it, is it?”

“No.” The door was open and hanging off its hinges, and one of the front windows was broken. “How did they find us? I thought this place was supposed to be totally off the grid!”

“Okay, stop!” Irene stomped her foot. “So, there’s obviously something bad going on. For _once_ , I need to know what the fuck is going on so I can help! I know you would rather have Kardala, but she can’t come to the phone right now, so I’ll have to take a message!”

“Sorry,” Nadiya muttered after a minute of awkward, fuming silence. “There’s a lot, so we should settle in. I don’t suppose you have some sort of tracking device we could use to find Mary Sage and Remy?”

“Who?”

“Oh, crap, you haven’t met Mary.” Nadiya ran a hand over her hair. “This might take a while. Basically, who I assume were government lackeys have also-presumably kidnapped Remy and the other person we’ve been traveling with, and we need to find them as soon as possible.”

“We could look for clues?” Irene suggested.

“Can’t hurt as a starting place,” Nadiya admitted.

They pushed through the broken door and stepped uncertainly into the cabin. It was, as the outside would suggest, pretty trashed. There was a large rip across the couch cushions, and Irene winced. “I liked that couch.”

“Remy did, too.” Nadiya frowned, going over to the couch, and fished in the stuffing. “Oh, Remy, you’re a goddamn genius,” she muttered, pulling out a phone. It was open to a location-tracking app. “Don’t tell him I called him a genius,” she added, glancing towards Irene.

“I probably won’t be able to, since I can’t be in the same room with both you and him,” Irene pointed out, folding her arms. “Does it say where they are?”

“Nevada. It looks like they’re headed for…” Nadiya trailed off, then swore quietly. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“What? Where are they headed?”

Nadiya groaned. “My lab,” she said, “is in southern Nevada, and if I had to guess, it’s either that or Area 51, so my money’s on my lab.”

“I thought you worked at a university,” Irene said.

“Yeah, a lab in a university,” Nadiya said. “I teach snotty undergrads and don’t get to publish my shit. Academia, right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter. We need to get going – who knows when they’re going to find out we’re tracking them.”

“How is that app even working? We don’t have Wi-Fi up here,” Irene said.

“Mary Sage must’ve given it a shot of her magic juice before they got nabbed.” Nadiya winced. Now _she_ was calling things magic. Mary Sage was rubbing off on her. “It might not last long. Another reason to get going. Grab Kardala’s – your – stuff. Looks like they left the car alone. Lucky. It’s super stolen.”

“It is _what_ –”

“We did what we had to.” Nadiya hurried into the bedroom, tossing her stuff into her bag, and then, for good measure, grabbing Mary Sage’s bag as well. “Remy’s stuff should be in the living room,” she threw over her shoulder.

“Yes, I got it,” Irene said, reappearing with not only her bag and Remy’s, but a full backpacking backpack. It looked heavy.

Nadiya stared at it blankly. “What’s that?”

“Supplies. Just in case.” Irene shrugged. “I guess Kardala didn’t remember that.”

“Her memories from you seemed kind of fuzzy. Do you really not remember _anything_ from when she was – in control?”

Irene squinted, thinking. “I… remember getting to the cabin, maybe. And maybe a minute from this morning. That’s all.”

Nadiya frowned. She’d have to look into that later. “Well, come on, we should get going. I can explain everything in the car. Kardala said you can drive?”

“Of course I can drive.” Irene was looking more wrong-footed every moment. “Can you not?”

Nadiya made a _more or less_ motion with one hand. “More than any of those other useless gays.” She opened the trunk and tossed her stuff, then Irene’s, inside. “Well, Mary wasn’t bad, but –”

“ _Who_ is _Mary?_ ” Irene looked to be dangerously close to foot-stomping territory again. “At least tell me that!”

“She was someone from the Fellowship,” Nadiya said, climbing into the passenger seat and breathing a sigh of relief as she shifted the seat far enough back that she could stretch her legs out. “They’d royally fucked her over, though. She took refuge in a Bible amusement park, and then we brought her back, but the Fellowship almost used her powers to take over the world, so when shit hit the fan, we took her with us? Well, after we dropped King Dick off at the Pentagon.”

Nadiya almost enjoyed the utter look of confusion on Irene’s face. “That… gave me so many more questions than answers.”

“I’ll start at the beginning, then,” Nadiya said as Irene started the car and pulled out. “So, a storm goddess lives in your head. I guess. First of all.”

“Kardala,” Irene said. “I know.”

It was Nadiya’s turn to blink in surprise. “What? How?”

“I remember the stimplant power experiment,” Irene said. “I remember… feeling her wake up. Take control.” Irene pursed her lips. “She doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“Yeah, well, relatable. She liked that you went camping,” Nadiya offered. “Mmm, Irene, honey, maybe go a little faster? We have a couple states to get through and if this is how you’re going to drive the whole time, I’m taking the wheel back.”

“It’s a windy mountain road. Safety first. Kardala can… access some of my memories, then?”

“Apparently. Between you and Mary, whatever modifications the Fellowship and fucking Martine made to my _life-saving technology_ must’ve messed with our brain chemistry. Remy and I haven’t shown any signs, though – just physical powers. Maybe when we get to my lab I can check on that.”

“I don’t really think that should be our top priority,” Irene said tightly.

Nadiya sneered. “Oh, really, Miss I Need Your Wendy’s Receipts? _You’re_ the expert on priorities now? Did I ask for your opinion?”

Irene fell silent. Glancing at her sidelong, Nadiya could see that Irene’s hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel (at ten and two, precisely) and her eyes were firmly fixed on the road ahead.

It was going to be a long trip.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene does her job. Mary Sage is missed. Nadiya has one entire emotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this chapter is only a week late solely because I wrote the whole thing last night. Next chapter is going to be a different POV, so buckle up!
> 
> As always, thanks to @someone-called-f1nch (F1nch on AO3) and @voidfishkid on Tumblr for being the only people as into this ship as I am.

“I know you don’t like me.”

Nadiya was staring out the window. “What gives you that impression?”

They’d been driving for about six hours now, and the past three (maybe four) of them had passed in uncomfortable silence, once Nadiya had explained, in clipped tones, what had gone on since they’d undergone the stimplant integration. At this point Nadiya didn’t feel like talking, and it was clear that Irene was still huffy. Nadiya was starting to wish for Kardala – brash and loud and annoying as the goddess was, she was better than this prim, pert woman sitting next to her, with her soft voice and her quietly brown, reprimanding eyes.

She’d been wishing for Mary Sage since hour two.

Irene reached into the bag of gorp she’d apparently had in her bag “just for emergencies” and popped a few raisins and a pistachio (with the shell on – who _did_ that) into her mouth. “Maybe the nasty looks you keep throwing at me? Or the fact that you’re scrunched against the car door? Or that you haven’t said a word to me that wasn’t…” Irene seemed to be searching for the right descriptor.

“Mean?” Nadiya supplied helpfully.

Irene flushed up to her greying roots. “Yes,” she said. “Nadiya, we have at least six more hours in the car, and –”

“It’d be four if you’d stop driving like there’s a traffic cop on every corner.”

“– and I’d prefer if we work out our differences before that time was up,” Irene continued stubbornly.

“Could you cut it out with the psycho-speak?” Nadiya mumbled, scrunching herself further into the corner of the car seat like an accordion. It was incredibly uncomfortable. When she saw Mary, she was going to hammer-punch the living shit out of her for getting her stupid self kidnapped.

Nadiya jumped as Irene slammed a hand onto the steering wheel. “Nadiya Jones!” she snapped. “Would you please _try_ not to make this like pulling teeth? Fine, I’ll stop the _psycho-speak!_ I’d be _very pleased_ if you would stop using me as an outlet for whatever you’re going through! Now just – just talk. What is _bothering_ you?”

“You wanna know what’s bothering me?” Nadiya snarled, sitting up with a jerk. “What’s _bothering_ me? I’m stuck with the idiot disaster crew in the middle of nowhere, on the run from the fucking U.S. government, and I thought I had a great job and then they turned out to be a cult, and I haven’t had a goddamn minute to myself in days, and just when I thought we’d get a second of peace and quiet Remy and Mary Sage got kidnapped and who the fuck knows what’s happening to them right now, and I’m afraid my lab’s going to get fucked up and all my research will be gone and –” Nadiya took a sudden, heaving breath that she hadn’t known she needed, and was horrified to realize her eyes were stinging – but she was even more horrified by her next words:  “– and I want my _mom!_ ”

Calmly, Irene pulled off on the side of the road, stopped the car. “Let it out,” she said quietly, and just like that, Nadiya did.

She was sobbing into her hands, trying to muffle the sound. She was a _scientist_ , she shouldn’t be this upset, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her lab being trashed and her career maybe ruined and Mary Sage’s look of blank terror whenever Nadiya had mentioned the experiments she did on herself and Remy’s kind smile at the kitchen table that morning, and what if they were dead? It wasn’t out of the question. “Everything’s just gone to shit,” she managed between heaving sobs, “and it wasn’t – it wasn’t fucking supposed to happen like this. Fuck. _Fuck._ ”

“Would you like a hug?” Irene asked, and before she could think better of it, Nadiya had flung herself into Irene’s arms.

“There you go,” Irene said, and her embrace was firm and she smelled like pine and rose potpourri under their travel stink. “It’s been a lot, huh?”

Nadiya nodded into Irene’s shoulder. After a moment, she jerked away, wiping ashamedly at her face. “I shouldn’t… I’m fine. Really.”

Irene dug in her bag and handed Nadiya a tissue. “I don’t think you are, but that’s okay. From what I can gather, I’m surprised this didn’t happen before. Being on the run from the government – after gaining superpowers and overthrowing a secret society slash cult? That’s a bit much for anybody.”

“I guess.” Nadiya wiped her nose, then, when it was clear that wasn’t going to do it, blew it loudly. “God. Can we just get going again?” Then, after a moment of furious internal struggle, “Please?”

“Probably a good idea.” Irene started the car again and pulled back onto the road. “Now that you’ve realized what’s going on with you, why don’t we talk about why you don’t like me?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Nadiya said, sounding as if she was on the tail end of a cold.

Irene gave Nadiya a small, rather amused smile. “I was clearing the air there, not solving our problem.”

Nadiya folded her arms over her chest, scowling at this unprecedented tactic. “I don’t dislike you. I am simply neutral towards you.”

“We both know that’s not true. I think you believe you’re smarter than I am,” Irene said thoughtfully.

“I am,” Nadiya replied promptly, crumpling up the tissue and stuffing it into her pocket. “I’m smarter than most people.”

Irene hums thoughtfully. “And you think I care about the wrong things.”

“You do! You have terrible priorities!” Somehow, though, Nadiya found herself fighting a small smile. What was wrong with her today?

“I have _different_ priorities,” Irene corrected her. “For example, my priority is driving the speed limit so we aren’t pulled over by a police officer – which would undoubtedly result in our arrest and make it impossible for us to help Remy and Mary – while your priority is driving as quickly as possible to get there as fast as we can.”

Nadiya blinked several times. “Well. When you put it that way, I suppose that’s accurate.”

“Another of my priorities is people,” Irene continued, “while yours center around other things.”

“Okay, that’s not fair,” Nadiya protested. “I care about people.”

“Oh? Who do you care about?”

“My mom, and my dad, and Remy, and Kardala, and Mary Sage – and you, I guess,” Nadiya finished, a little grudgingly.

“Well, I care about Remy and Mary too,” Irene said, and now she smiled for the first time that Nadiya had seen, really, at least since they’d first met at the Fellowship. She smiled with her entire face – eyes and nose scrunched into wrinkles, a hint of straight white teeth, the ends of her mouth pulling up towards her ears. (Mary Sage didn’t smile like that. When she smiled, it didn’t reach her eyes, and her mouth just barely twitched up, the right side further than the left.) “And I care about you.”

“You care about everybody.”

“Exactly.” Irene looked pleased, like Nadiya had cracked some kind of code. “That’s what I do. I care. And,” she added, and a hint of the earlier yelling-and-foot-stomping Irene showed itself in her tone, “that isn’t any less important than all the experiments and world-saving – or world-destroying – science you do.”

Nadiya turned and stared out the window. God. She was going to have to say it, wasn’t she? She could practically feel Irene’s expectant stare on the back of her neck. “…Sorry for thinking your job is useless,” she muttered.

“Well, I’m guessing that’s as good as it’s going to get for now,” Irene said lightly, and turned her eyes back to the road. “There’s a rest stop coming up. We need to pause, use the bathroom, stretch our legs, get some water. Who knows what we’ll be facing when we get to your lab – we can’t burn ourselves out getting there.”

“Yeah.” There were a few moments of quiet, then Nadiya said, “Irene?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks.”

Absently, Irene put out a hand and patted Nadiya’s arm. “You’re welcome.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy sings a song. Mary Sage spills the beans. (Nadiya and Irene are notably absent.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't wait three more days, so here's this. And now a PSA.
> 
> Hi, everyone! I just wanted to give a few updates on some characterization – and let you know that you catch something problematic in my representation, please don’t hesitate to tell me, either by commenting or by messaging me on my Tumblr (link found at the end of the chapter)!  
> Firstly, Mary’s mind has been damaged by the Fellowship’s experiments canonically, so I’m trying to work with that. As inspired by @voidfishkid, it looks a lot like depersonalization or dissociative disorder. In my universe, it comes in progressive stages: a dissociative episode or a flashback can develop into a panic attack which can trigger a seizure.  
> More directly: my Remy has ADHD (predominantly hyperactive-impulsive presentation). I do not have direct experience with ADHD, and though I am close with people who do and have done some research, I know that my representation will not be perfect. If there is a way I portray Remy and his experience, or Mary and hers, that makes you uncomfortable or is ableist, etc., let me know and I will change it.  
> Thanks, and happy reading!

“Mary. Mary Mary Mary. Stay with me.”

Remy was leaning across the gap between their beds as far as he could with his left wrist cuffed to the bed’s rail. He was gripping Mary’s clammy hand in his. She was clutching it like a lifeline. Her face was a sickly greenish-white between her freckles. He could hear her breathing – too shallow, too fast.

Mary Sage was having a panic attack, and Remy didn’t know what to do.

Mary’s hand tightened even further on his – he could see the veins in her arm around the IV taped to it. “I can’t,” she gasped. “Remy, I – they’re gonna –” She looked like she was about to cry, but her eyes stayed dry. Instead, she gagged and bent double over her knees, hair oddly flat without the static of her technopath powers.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” Remy said urgently. “I’ll – I’ll fight them for you, I promise. I can kick real good, even without my powers.”

Mary Sage shook her head without sitting up. “No, no, no…” she mumbled. She turned her head towards Remy. Her eyes were glassy, lacking their usual sharp assessment. “M’ head hurts. Remy? My head. Remy – I can’t –” She gagged again, and he could feel – and see – that she was shaking like a leaf.

Remy tugged uselessly on his handcuffs. “Uh. Shit. Mary, it’s gonna be okay. You think Nadiya and – and Irene would just – yeah, nah. They’re cool, they’re gonna rescue us, deffo. No sweat. Kardala’s gonna bust in here and smash everything. Like the helicopter. Remember the helicopter?” He snapped the fingers of his free hand – well, the one that wasn’t being clung to by Mary. That wrist was starting to burn from his constant tugging at it, but he couldn’t stop. It was just getting worse because of the sedatives that were being pumped into him through the IV. “She exploded it just like that. Hell, and Nad – Nad’s gonna fuck ‘em up. Just – just hammer punch ‘em, you know? Don’t even sweat. Nad’s smart enough to find the phone, she super is. I bet you they’re on their way right now.”

He could tell it wasn’t helping. Mary was, if anything, getting worse. Remy wished he could go over and hug her – from what he’d seen of Mary, she was a very touchy person. Hell, so was he. “Mary. Ya gotta help me help you,” Remy said. He winced as her hand squeezed again, jostling his IV. “Give me something, what can I do, what helps?”

No response.

Then Remy had an idea. A lightbulb-over-the-head idea. He didn’t know whether it was genius or terrible, but it couldn’t hurt to try. A bit uncertainly – because he didn’t really remember the lyrics – he started singing. Off-key. Awkward.

“Jesus loves you, this I know… for the Bible tells me so… Something something we belong… He is weak and we are strong.” Remy squeezed Mary’s hand encouragingly.

“Not the fuckin’ words,” Mary mumbled after a long moment.

“Close enough.” Remy smiled. “Hey, you’re not alone, okay? We’ve got magic powers. And we’ve got friends on the outside. Deep breaths. Breathe with me.”

Mary gave him a dark scowl, but obediently took a deep, shaking breath in, held it, and let it out. Then again. And again. Remy breathed an internal sigh of relief as he felt Mary’s grip on his hand relax a little.

Slowly, Mary sat up, swallowing hard. “Sorry, Jump Boy. Fellowship fucked me up real good, I guess. Your hand okay?”

She let him go and he flexed his hand experimentally. “Yeah, it’s chill. Uh… how’s your head?”

Mary shrugged. “Don’t think I’m going to have a seizure now.”

“Wait, that was an option?” Remy said, eyes widening.

“It was about two minutes away from happening. I’m telling you – Fellowship fucked me up. Fuckin’ Martine is the worst.” Mary glumly picked at the medical tape holding her IV in place. “God any hidden talents, Jump Boy? Think you could get us out of here?”

Remy shook his head. “I don’t know how to pick locks. I don’t even know where we _are_.”

“Nevada,” Mary said immediately. “Must be. I always knew the feds were up to something here. We were flying, like… south and west, and we’re definitely not in Cali, so it’s gotta be Nevada. Think you could hack this equipment?” She jerked a thumb at the machines sitting ominously on the edge of the room.

“Wha -? No? I need a computer. Console, whatever. General electronics are _your_ thing, aren’t they?” Remy said, rubbing at his aching wrist.

Mary grumbled under her breath. “Thought you were supposed to be some sorta genius, Jump Boy.”

“Nah, that’s Nad. I’m good at cyber security, and gymnastics and stuff, but nothing… over the top.” Remy scratched his scalp, trying to think. It wasn’t really working. His thoughts were going in fifty different directions, and he couldn’t pick out a single one of them. “Crap. God, I can’t focus for shit anyways.”

It was quiet for a moment in the room, aside from the regular beeping of a few of the unidentified machines. Then Remy said, “You think it’s a conspiracy? All of this?”

Mary squinted at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. Just don’t like...” He gestured at where he was handcuffed to the bed. “But I’ll be okay. Whatever juice they’re loading us with doesn’t help either.”

Mary studied her own cuffed hand critically. “I bet if I broke my thumb I could get out of these,” she said. “Ya think?”

“Jeez, Mary, no!” Remy said, horrified. “Don’t break your thumb. Or any of your bones. Not yet, at least, okay? Maybe Nad and Irene – Kardala – whatever – will rescue us. We at least need a plan first. They probably have, like, guns and stuff.”

“I guess you’re right.” Mary slumped back against her pillow. “Hey, Rem?”

“Yeah?”

“You ever feel like… the whole world’s against you?”

Remy looked down at his hand. Thought about his parents disappearing on the eve of the Olympics. Thought about American Ninja Warrior. Thought about Mike’s strained face as he tried to balance the gym’s books. Thought about Xander asking why Uncle Remy was moving away. “Maybe a little. Why?”

“That’s how I feel every fuckin’ day.” Mary closed her eyes. “Ever since my folks were arrested. Everything’s been going wrong. Bad stuff around every corner. And just when I found all of you nerds, then we get kidnapped by the feds and I lose my powers again, and… fuck. Remy? Can you keep a secret?”

“If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten the Fellowship job.”

“Good point.” Mary sighed, then shrugged. “And Nadiya’s super fuckin’ cute. There’s that, too.”

It took Remy a moment to process what she’d just said. “Wait. You have a crush on Nad?”

“Duh. God, why is everyone so oblivious? Including and especially her. Anyways, it sucks, because now we’re stuck here, where I can’t keep teasing her until she cracks and either tells me to fuck off or realizes she likes me too. She’s gay, right?”

“I have no idea.”

Mary shrugged again, looking like she would very much like to become one with her pillow. “So. I mean, it’s not even a secret, really. What about you? Got any skeletons in the ol’ closet, Jump Boy?”

Remy thought about Xander hugging him goodbye. Thought about sitting in the police station for hours as the police officers scratched their heads in bafflement and told him that no two people had ever disappeared so completely as his parents had. Thought about his mom’s encrypted laptop, buried under his socks in the bag he’d brought with him.

“Nah,” he said with a grin. “What you see is what you get. No secrets here.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene tells the truth. Nadiya invokes intimidation. Kardala makes a joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, with an ever-expanding outline and a hit on my girl Irene! Sorry for the shortness of this chapter - we'll get into Rescue Shenanigans and reunions next time, I promise.
> 
> As always, find me on Tumblr [@birdiethebibliophile](birdiethebibliophile.tumblr.com)!

“So this is the place.”

“Yeah.”

Nadiya hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this place until she was back. The whitewashed stucco buildings; the stunted trees fluttering in the dry breeze, whispering secrets gathered from the surrounding desert; the harried grad students typing out emails on their phones; the innocent undergrads with their skateboards and their Ray-Bans. Nadiya took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of fresh mulch, dust, and that campus smell she always categorized as “printer toner and students’ tears.”

Of course, the comfort of being back was muted by the presence of the three vans with dark-tinted windows parked casually in front of the biochem building, and the sign hanging from the double doors reading DO NOT ENTER: DECONTAMINATION IN PROCESS in large, blocky letters.

“They’ve got to be in there,” Nadiya said. “The phone definitely led us to campus. My lab’s up there, on the ninth floor.”

“Yes. I can’t imagine that’s not where… they are.”

Nadiya nodded decisively, walking around to the back of the car and popping the trunk, starting to load up with gear. “Here, your weird camping shit,” she said, holding the backpack out to Irene.

Who didn’t move to take it.

Nadiya shook the bag in Irene’s direction. “Let’s get _going_ before they realize we’re here!”

“If I go in there,” Irene said slowly, “and Mary and Remy are in there as well, I’ll disappear. I’ll turn back into Kardala.”

“Yeah, I know. And I’ll get my Kirby powers back,” Nadiya said impatiently. “Good thing, too – who knows what we’re going to run into in there.”

“No!” Nadiya’s eyes widened. She thought she’d seen the, for lack of a better term, dark side of Irene when she’d been stomping around earlier, or when she’d been frustrated with Nadiya’s attitude. This was something else:  Irene was strangely still, her hands clenched into tight fists, and her outburst was urgent, almost panicked. Any hint of the comforting woman who’d hugged the tears out of her earlier was, if not gone, then subsumed in the current desperation seen in her face, her body language. “I don’t think you understand, Nadiya. I will no longer, in many ways, exist, as long as Kardala’s in control. I don’t know if I – if I’d ever come back. You know as well as I do Kardala would do just about anything to say free from her _prison_.”

Nadiya stared. There was a note of bitterness in Irene’s voice she hadn’t heard before.

“You get it, don’t you, Nadiya?” Irene said, practically pleading.

For a second, Nadiya thought she might. She thought about Kardala – her harsh, brash ways, in comparison with Irene’s rock-steady, quiet demeanor. Tried to imagine what it would be like to be trapped in your own body – your own mind – to be a silent observer in your own life. To sometimes not know what was happening, to lose hours and days to a blankness, maybe not to even have enough awareness to fight back, to be upset about your lost (stolen) life.

But then she thought about Mary and Remy locked up in her lab, being subjected to who-knew-what, and her mouth tightened. “Sure,” she said sardonically. “Just riddle me this, Irene, sweetheart. What can you, Irene Baker… do… to help save Mary Sage and Remy… that Kardala can’t? Hmm? Don’t need anybody talked to. Don’t need any… budgets made. Any shoulders to cry on. We need someone who can throw armed federal agents through a window or summon a bolt of lightning.” Nadiya took a step forwards and continued, relentlessly. She had a feeling she was being cruel, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to risk – whatever would happen if Irene stayed Irene. Maybe Nadiya would be able to rescue Mary Sage and Remy by herself, but maybe she wouldn’t, and she realized she wasn’t willing to leave that to chance. “We don’t need Irene Baker right now. We need Kardala. So suck it up, and let’s go. We can worry about your identity crisis later.”

When Nadiya shoved the backpack at Irene again, her hands came up and took it. Nadiya just caught the look in her eyes as they dropped. It was hurt – deep hurt. Nadiya normally wasn’t the best at reading expressions, but Irene’s was an open book. “Let’s go, then,” Irene said, voice brittle. “No time to waste. Right?”

Nadiya felt oddly guilty, like the time she’d accidentally dropped a glass someone had handed her; like she’d shattered something the person had trusted her with. “Right,” she said.

“Strategy?”

“I say charge straight the fuck in, catch them by surprise, and rescue our teammates.”

“Yeah, there’s no possible way this could go wrong,” Irene said, straightening the Fellowship vest she still wore.

“Do we bring their stuff? Our stuff?” Nadiya hefted her bag, wondering how much it would hinder her in combat, if it came to that – which it probably would.

“Depends. Will we be coming back to the car?”

Nadiya studied the vehicle critically. “It’s still stolen, so people are probably still looking for it. We should probably ditch it at this point. I know my way around this place; I can get us out of here after the rescue mission. Don’t want to risk our stuff getting confiscated along with the car.” She pulled Remy’s bag out of the trunk and stuffed it into the top of her own, then tossed Mary Sage’s bag to Irene. “This one’s heavier. Kardala can carry it.”

Irene just nodded, zipping Mary Sage’s bag into hers. “Ninth floor, you said?”

“Yeah. The elevator only works half the time, so we should take the stairs – safer, anyways.” Nadiya took a deep breath, then started for the building. “Let’s go.”

They’d barely even made it through the front door when Irene froze, eyes clenched shut and limbs twitching. Nadiya saw the transformation as if in slow motion, inches and muscles unfolding from Irene, her eyes flying open and sparking an electric blue-white that hurt to look at, her mouth curving into a wide smile.

“FINALLY!” Kardala roared. “You have done well, de- Nadiya, to release me from my captivity once more. Where are we? This is not the forest. How long have I been subjected to the Irene prison?”

“Ten, twelve hours? Something like that.” Nadiya frowned. Usually Kardala seemed to be able to remember a bit more than that. If she didn’t know where or when they were, she must’ve been completely cut off from Irene’s experiences this time. “Remy and Mary Sage were… kidnapped. We were pretty sure they were here, and – well, I guess we were right,” she added, gesturing at Kardala.

“Kidnapped? Where are they being held?”

“Ninth floor, I think. That’s where my lab is.”

Kardala’s brow furrowed as she thought. “Do their captors know we are here?”

“I… don’t know?”

“Perhaps it would be better not to alert them until the last minute, especially if they have our companions captive.”

Nadiya had the sudden, vivid memory of Martine holding a gun to Mary Sage’s head. “Yeah. No, you’re right. Stairs, straight up to the ninth floor, quiet as possible? I guess?”

Kardala nodded. “I shall lead the way and take care of any enemies we encounter.” She grinned. “They will meet their maker! Do you get it?”

“Yeah, Kardala.”

“It was a joke! Because I am a god!”

Nadiya sighed. “Yeah, Kardala.”

As much as she hated to admit it, she already missed Irene.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya makes some observations. Mary Sage needs a new vest. Remy uses his powers for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so anyways it's been LITERALLY three weeks and I'm very very sorry to everyone but mostly to my kids who I have been neglecting in favor of spring break, how dare I
> 
> also I'm doing some more hits and I'm not done @ clint sorry for taking your nice superhero story and dialing the angst up to 11 in pretty much every conceivable way but them's the breaks I think

As it turned out, Nadiya and Kardala only made it past the seventh floor. It was lucky that Kardala was leading the way, because even she, goddess though she was, was almost knocked down the stairs by a sudden blast of energy. But instead of roaring with anger as Nadiya expected, she burst into laughter. “Good shot, little man!” she boomed. “Erm, Remy. Were I not divine and all-powerful, it surely would have harmed me terribly!”

Nadiya came up beside Kardala in time to see Remy throw his arms around her neck. Behind him, leaning against the wall, and looking decidedly worse for wear, was Mary Sage.

She looked tired, Nadiya thought, even though it had only been about twelve hours. More than tired – wrung-out. Her skin was pasty (well, pastier than usual) between her freckles, and her hair was floating slightly with static electricity. There were heavy circles under her eyes, which looked a little unfocused. However, when she caught Nadiya’s stare, she cracked a smile. “Reed Richards to the rescue, huh?”

Remy bounced back to the ground, and Nadiya noticed he didn’t look too hot either. There was something a little trembling about his smile, and there was a too-dark line around his left wrist. Nadiya realized the darkness was blood, and it was still dripping onto the floor.

“Remy, your wrist,” she blurted out.

Remy studied it with the expression of a man who’d hoped he wouldn’t have to explain himself. “Uh, they cuffed us to the hospital beds? It wasn’t _super_ good. We felt you guys get here, and I used my kinetic energy to break our cuffs. We also had to rip out our IVs, which deffo looks way easier in the movies. Like, ow.”

“We have to get out of here,” Nadiya cut in urgently. “Listen, there’s a – don’t laugh – there’s a sewer entrance in the basement of this building, nobody ever uses it, don’t ask how I know.”

Mary Sage, of course, immediately started snickering, and said, “You can’t just say that and not tell us. Why does a professional genius academic or whatever know about a fucking sewer entrance? Gotta tell us now, Nad, you gotta.”

Nadiya flushed. “If you must know, I may have stored some stuff down there for when I’ve had to stay overnight for an experiment. It’s just, like, power bars and extra coffee and stuff.”

“In a _sewer?_ ” Mary Sage said, her grin widening.

“It’s not in use,” Nadiya argued. “It’s dry. There’s a nice little ladder down to the bottom. I’m only allowed to work twenty-five hours a week, so sometimes they try to kick me out, and I’d never get anything done like that. Anyways, I had a little too much time on my hands one weekend –” she had planned to spend the weekend with her dad, but he cancelled last-minute for a military gala she wasn’t invited to ( _sorry, Nadiya, unavoidable, but I know you’ll be glad for the extra lab time – you said you were close on that one patent, right?_ ) “– and I explored a little, there’s miles down there, all closed off. I think I’m the only one who knows about it, so we should be able to hide down there for a while until they’re off our scent.”

Mary Sage squinted and shoved her glasses up her nose. “Yeah, well, that’s what we said last time, and they found us in that cabin, didn’t they? They’re gonna find us wherever we go. Doesn’t really matter. What’s the – the point?” Her hands clenched.

Remy turned quickly to Mary Sage and grabbed her hand. She twitched, then seemed to slump slightly. “Yeah, sewer, whatever,” she mumbled. “Sounds fuckin’ fantastic, let’s go. Leave Remy’s phone, though, I bet that’s how they tracked us.”

“Could be,” Remy said, shrugging jerkily. “Actually, hey, do you guys have my bag? That’s – I’d like that back, please.”

“Oh. Sure.” Nadiya pulled Remy’s bag out of her own and handed it over. “Anyways. Basement. Now. Yeah? How have we not even run into any guards, did they even –”

It was at that moment when the side of the stairwell exploded.

Nadiya’s vision whited out for a second as she felt herself fly horizontal, smash through something, and hit the floor. She groaned, wiggling her fingers, trying to figure out if anything was broken. This was the second time she’d been in an explosion in two days, and she was getting a little sick of it – even with stimplant skin, that was going to leave some bruises the next day. _Shit_. If she was feeling bruised, what had happened to the others? Kardala would be fine (goddess), and Remy probably had righted himself before hitting anything, but Mary Sage…

“Space Cadet,” Nadiya mumbled, sitting up. Then, when that didn’t get any response, she said, in a louder and more urgent voice. “Space Cadet? Mary Sage. Mary!”

Nothing.

Nadiya staggered to her feet, and then felt her stomach drop as she looked around. There was rubble everywhere, and the explosion had – she looked up.

The ceiling above her was also decimated. Her lab. Her _lab_. Fuck.

“Nadiya?” a weak voice said. Remy.

Nadiya jerked around and strode over to wear the voice was, under a fallen beam. “I’m here, hold on a second.” She changed her arms into levers and wedged them under the beam, managing to shove it upwards. “Can you get out?”

“Lemme see.” There were sounds of shifting. “Yeah, I think so. Mary’s in here with me, I think she’s a little knocked out from getting hit? I’ll push her out first and then come out, okay?”

“Hurry,” Nadiya groaned. “This thing’s heavy.”

Carefully, Remy pushed an unconscious Mary Sage out from the rubble. Her glasses were covered with dust and scratches, but somehow still on her face, and she had a cut on her cheek. Otherwise, she looked relatively undamaged.

“Managed to like, shield her with my real good jumps,” Remy said, wiggling out from under the rubble as well. “I think she’s okay?”

Sure enough, just as he said that, she began stirring. “What…”

“I don’t know,” Nadiya said, panting as she lowered the beam back to the ground. “Has anyone seen Kardala?”

“Kardala is present and intact!” The huge form of Kardala climbed over a pile of drywall and masonry, her hair now grey throughout rather than just as the roots. “How is Mary Sage of the robot angels?”

“Mary’s good,” Mary Sage mumbled, but she didn’t look good. Neither did Remy – they both looked worse than before, glassy-eyed and shaking, and Remy was favoring his left leg.

“Basement,” Nadiya said. “Whatever’s going on, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to be here when shit goes down. This is bad enough.”

“Pretty sure shit’s already going down,” Remy said quietly, and nudged Nadiya to turn around.

In the hole blown in the side of the biochem building stood a silhouetted figure, their identity concealed by a masked helmet. They took two deliberate steps forward into the room, clapped their hands together, and the air around them began to vibrate, a low, almost painful sound emanating from them.

“Well, shit,” Nadiya said, and the figure ran forward directly towards Mary Sage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [@birdiethebibliophile](birdiethebibliophile.tumblr.com)!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy aces his Notice check. Kardala has an emotion, probably. Nadiya almost takes the fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeets this into the world
> 
> I'm super bad at writing action scenes but now that we're past that maybe I can get some Actual Content out
> 
> get ready for MORE PLOT and MORE ANGST and all that good stuff, coming to a fanfic near you

Before the figure could reach Mary Sage, they were tackled by Kardala. Full-on, full-body tackled, that sent them halfway across them room and sent both of them crashing into a pile of rubble. Nadiya winced. That had to hurt.

“Remy, get Mary Sage out of here,” Nadiya ordered, her arms sharpening into blades. She felt the drain of energy this time as the composition and tensile strength of her body shifted. It occurred to her that she’d been up for probably… thirteen hours, had barely eaten a thing, and had spent twelve of those thirteen hours traveling and on edge. That couldn’t be good.

“I’ll – I’ll try.” Nadiya winced. Remy sounded exhausted – definitely worse than her, she couldn’t exactly blame him, he’s been fucking _handcuffed down_ for hours after being _kidnapped_ – and not hopeful. They’d be lucky if he could even shield Mary, much less get her to safety or help her and Kardala.

Meanwhile, another wave of sound vibrated through the room, and Kardala was thrown backwards as it slammed into her. “Ah, a worthy opponent!” she boomed, after she hit the wall hard enough to send cracks all up and down the paint, sending more bits of plaster raining down on all of them.

“Cut the crap, Kardala, let’s just take them down,” Nadiya bit out, and ran for their attacker.

She reached them just as they were getting up, but their reflexes were still keen enough that they whirled and caught Nadiya’s blades between their forearms, pinning them together. Nadiya cursed, trying to tug herself free, but before she could, they jerked Nadiya off her feet. She landed on the floor, the air knocked out of her.

“Kardala, little help?” she grunted, trying to keep them from planting a foot on her throat. They clapped their hands together again, and Nadiya’s head slammed against the floor as her ears rang. _How did they get the power? Did fucking Martine sell my tech out to the highest bidder?_ The patent application hadn’t even gone through yet, so she probably had. That actually made Nadiya more angry than the fact that someone was currently trying to kick her in the face.

“Kardala is happy to provide assistance!” Without hesitation, Kardala strode over and lifted the figure off the ground with one hand, massive arms bulging.

She was about to toss them aside, when Remy gasped. “Oh, _shit_ –”

Kardala turned. “What? Is something –” Whatever she was about to say was cut off as her captive kneed her in the stomach, causing her to drop them almost on top of Nadiya. Luckily, Nadiya rolled out of the way in time and stabbed at their ankles. They stumbled, but stayed upright, dodged another grab from Kardala, and – grabbed Nadiya instead. Nadiya squawked in protest as they dragged her to the giant hole in the stairwell wall, yanking her upright and shoving her out over the nine-story drop, her feet scrabbling at the edge of the crumbling brick.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” they said. Their voice was distorted, electronic; nothing in it helped identify anything about them. “Not if you want your friend to live.” Nadiya glanced over to see Kardala reluctantly dissipate the lightning that had been building in her hands. The air smelled like ozone and felt way more humid than it should be in Nevada in July – evidence of Kardala’s emotional state.

Wait.

Was Kardala upset, then? Was she possibly – worried about them? About her?

“That’s better,” the person said, dragging Nadiya maybe an inch back from thin air and the insistent tug of gravity. “This doesn’t have to be difficult. You just have to –”

Nadiya interrupted them with a hammer fist to the side of the head. They let go of her, and she had to grab for the side of the building to prevent herself from falling out of the stairwell. Even then, it was a near thing, and she had a heart-stopping moment where she couldn’t quite get a grip on the powdery stone. “Fuck off?” she snarled once she’d gotten her footing, then changed her hand to a giant paddle and knocked her attacker across the room with a hard backhand.

“Brat,” they said, picking themselves up from the rubble. “Who do you think –”

Kardala picked them up again, and from the way they convulsed, she still had quite a bit of electricity surging through her. She shook him hard. “I think it is better if you do not finish that sentence. You tried to hurt Nadiya Jones and Mary Sage of the robot angels,” she said sternly. “Foolish as they are, they are still my teammates. I am… displeased.”

Nadiya felt another soundwave start to build in the room. If she didn’t do something now, they would hit Kardala with it, and goddess or not, getting hit with something like that at close range would be bad. And if Kardala was out of commission, there’d be no way Nadiya could take this person out on their own. She glanced over to where Remy and Mary Sage were still cowering in the rubble; Remy’s normally flushed face was chalky under his dark skin, and Mary Sage was shaking so badly that Nadiya could see it even from across the room. They wouldn’t last a minute if both she and Kardala went down.

With a huge effort, Nadiya shifted an arm into a baseball bat. “Kardala!” she yelled. “Pull!”

Kardala lit up, hefted the attacker, and flung them in Nadiya’s direction. Nadiya had never been what you might call coordinated, but she could hit a target when said target was human-sized – and she did, with a resounding crack that sent them to the floor like a rag doll. This time, they didn’t get back up.

Nadiya let out a long breath punctuated by a coughing fit as her lungs rebelled against all the dust in the air. Her arms shifted back to normal, and a wave of dizziness and fatigue washed over her, hard enough that she had to bend over. “Remy? You and Mary Sage okay?” she panted out.

“Yeah – yeah, we’re fine. But you gotta see this.” Remy picked his way through the rubble to where their attacker had gone down. He brushed plaster dust off the person’s chest. Nadiya peered at the place he indicated.

There, where a breast pocket would be on a button-up, was the 24 question mark logo of the Do-Good Fellowship.

Mary joined them, leaning heavily on Remy, who winced as he put weight on his bad leg. “Fuck,” she said, and then again, more vehemently, “ _Fuck_. What the hell does this mean?”

“No clue.” Nadiya swayed, trying to blink back stars from her vision. Maybe she shouldn’t have transformed so many times in a row. “We should… we gotta…”

And then her vision went completely black, and she was unconscious before she hit the floor.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary Sage stocks up. Irene fights back. Kardala struggles with... herself.

Nadiya Jones was heavier than Remy was, Kardala thought, balancing her teammate’s unconscious body where it was thrown over her shoulder as she descended the ladder one-handed.

“Kardala, you – y’need any help?” Remy asked from below. He and Mary Sage of the robot angels had gone down ahead of her, and had already taken up residence in Nadiya Jones’s secret sewer hideout. Apparently, she had not been lying about the power bars, as Mary Sage had already raided the supplies and determined that for herself.

“Kardala is competent enough to bring one human, however abnormal or tall in stature, down a single ladder,” Kardala said scornfully, jumping off the ladder with five rungs to spare just to prove it. She landed hard but steadily, and Remy winced at the impact.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, just thought I’d ask,” Remy said nervously. There was a small blow-up mattress on the dry cement ground, and he was sitting on it. His leg was bouncing as if jolts of electricity were pulsing through him. He had his bag in his lap, clutching it with both hands.

 _He’s still injured,_ Irene snapped. _His wrist –_

Kardala shrugged off the persistent voice like an insect’s buzzing. Since her last manifestation, Irene Baker had been vocal. Awake. Much more so than other times, when Kardala could comfortably ignore her existence except as an unfortunate drawback that required her to stay close to her team, lest she revert forms. She set Nadiya Jones down on the mattress as well. Nadiya groaned and stirred, but did not awaken.

“She gonna be okay?” Mary Sage asked. Her voice, normally nearly as loud (though not as booming) as Kardala’s, was small. She was not sitting on the mattress, but was leaning against a pile of blankets nearby. Kardala could see many, many power bars in her pockets. Mary Sage, she thought with mild appreciation, was someone who knew how to plan ahead, as she herself did.

Kardala looked Nadiya Jones over critically. “We shall know soon enough,” she decided. “If not, there are still three of us. It will not impact our abilities.”

Without warning, Irene’s voice hit her hard enough she went cross-eyed. _Don’t you dare let Nadiya die!_ Irene yelled, and Kardala could feel the full force of Irene’s considerable personality tear at her, attempting to turn her inside out. _Don’t you fucking dare, Kardala –_

“Kardala? You good?” Remy said uncertainly.

“Kardala is fine!” she said, forcing a smile. “I must…” She gestured vaguely towards the bend in the sewer line, then headed in that direction.

She’d only just gotten around the corner when Irene’s voice hit her again. _And now you walk away? Your teammates are injured! You –_

 _Why do you care so much for them, Irene Baker?_ Kardala snapped, cutting her off.

_Why wouldn’t I?_

_I do not know._ Is _there a reason?_

Irene was silent for a moment. Kardala’s mind was suddenly flooded with memories from outside the building, minutes before she manifested into her true form once more. She saw Nadiya Jones, towering over her in her mean stature, spitting words of cruelty.

At least, she knew them to be cruel because she could feel how they hurt Irene.

 _That_ wasn’t a very comfortable sensation. Or thought.

 _Why would you care about someone who hurt you like that?_ Kardala asked, genuinely perplexed.

 _She didn’t want to hurt me,_ Irene responded. _She was scared. She’s just a kid, Kardala, Christ. They’re all just kids._

_I am not a child._

_Not you. Not me. But Nadiya, and even Mary and Remy, really. Nadiya… needed you. So she did what she thought she had to do._

Kardala knew she was not young. Irene was old compared to the others – from what Kardala knew of human ages (not much) she could’ve been Nadiya’s mother – but Kardala was different. She’d existed before Irene, and she would exist afterwards.

Probably.

 _If you won’t help them, I will, Kardala_. Kardala doubled over, crumpling against the wall, as she felt that same sensation of something trying to turn her inside out. Irene – Irene was trying to escape.

 _Stop!_ Kardala commanded, but her voice didn’t carry the weight inside their head – her head, her head, it was hers, not Irene’s – _I demand you stop, Irene Baker!_

The hold on her loosened, and she gasped for breath, eyes clenched shut. The strain of mortal existence did not tax her often, but she felt now as she had directly after they had escaped the Fellowship:  drained and weary.

 _You care about them too,_ Irene said at length, more calmly. _Don’t try to pretend you don’t_.

Kardala started to protest, but, unbidden, images sifted into her mind, this time from her own memory, not Irene’s. Remy huddled in the rubble of the collapsed room. Mary Sage curled against him, wide-eyed. Nadiya Jones being held over a drop that Kardala knew would kill a human – even one with the abilities Nadiya possessed.

She remembered the swoop of dread in her stomach, the way her lightning faded without her calling it back intentionally. For in that moment, she had imagined Nadiya Jones, crumpled and broken so many stories below, and she had rejected that. Immediately.

She had not been thinking about the consequence it would have on the team, the difficulty of keeping Irene Baker in check with only three members. She had been thinking only of Nadiya Jones, dead, and not liking it one bit.

 _See?_ Irene said. _You care._

Kardala opened her eyes, looked down at her palms. They were broader than when she was Irene – than when Irene inhabited the body – than when – _fuck_ , they were broader now, that’s what she knew. She still had the calluses on the insides of her fingers and the tops of her palms that she assumed came from Irene, though.

 _Rock climbing_ , Irene supplied.

_You climb rocks?_

_Pretty typical in Colorado_ , Irene said, with what Kardala interpreted as a shrug.

Kardala rubbed her hands together. It was strange, the things that stayed. It bothered her. Made her feel like she was not fully… Kardala.

 _You’re not_ , Irene said, and Kardala couldn’t tell whether it was sharp or soft. Much of Irene seemed to be both.

She didn’t understand.

 _Go help them_ , Irene urged, suddenly sounding tired. _Just – help them. Don’t let Nadiya die. Remy’s wrist and leg probably need medical attention, and you need to check Mary Sage out as well. I know some first-aid, I can help._

 _I do not need your assistance, Irene Baker_. With a sudden, violent shove, Kardala forced Irene back into the furthest corner of her mind and slammed the door. The memories from earlier disappeared, as did the presence that had been seeping in, filling in the cracks.

Kardala didn’t like to think that she wasn’t complete – that she had cracks that needed filling, especially not by Irene Baker.

But she couldn’t quite deny the aching, empty space Irene left behind.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy and Kardala act shifty. Mary Sage quotes scripture. Nadiya muses on natural disasters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> otherwise known as Birdie Has No Self Control
> 
> happy second update in one day, have some gay

“Hey, Nad. Welcome back.”

“Nnn…”

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot,” Mary Sage said. Her wrist was wrapped in a bandage, and her glasses were off. She looked tired, and her hair was hanging in lanky, half-curled strings around her face. It made her look older than she usually did. “You coulda died. You almost _did_. Coupla times, actually.”

“So did you,” Nadiya pointed out. Slowly, she sat up. Her head ached.

“Yeah. Well.” Mary Sage bit at the frayed end of one of her friendship bracelets – Nadiya thought maybe it was pink and purple. Then, after a minute, she moved onto her thumbnail. “You almost got dropped out a window by a fuckin’… fuckin’ Sound Ninja.”

Nadiya snorted half a laugh at that. “You watch Naruto?”

“Shut up.” But the lines around Mary’s mouth softened. “It’s a good show. Watched it illegally on my parents’ laptop in middle school. I had such a crush on Sakura.”

“I was always more of a comics kid, but, well. Lot of crossover with that and the anime crowd. Throw me a bottle of water?”

Mary Sage grabbed one from the stash and tossed it over. Nadiya drank half of it in one go before coming up for breath. “God, that’s better. Thanks.” Her head wasn’t pounding quite as much, and her throat no longer felt like it was coated in dust. “Anything happen while I was out?”

“Kardala’s actin’ weird. So’s Remy, for that matter. Whatever.” Mary Sage bit more viciously at her thumbnail. “We gotta get moving soon. Can’t stay here right under the building – they’ll find us, easy. Space Cadet is out.”

“Yeah, good point.” Nadiya swung her legs off the mattress with a groan. “God. What a mess.”

“You’re tellin’ me.” Mary Sage spat out the offending nail, and curled her thumb inside a fist.

“Did you guys learn anything else about what the fuck was going on with the – the Sound Ninja?”

“No. Don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure, I guess.” Nadiya ran a hand over her hair. It was tacky with sweat and plaster dust. “You, uh… you okay?”

No response.

“Mary?”

“First Samuel nineteen, verses one through three,” Mary Sage said. Her voice was low, almost mumbled, but clear enough that Nadiya could understand every word she said. “ ‘And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David./And Jonathan told David, “Saul my father seeks to kill you. Therefore be on your guard in the morning. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself./And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you. And if I learn anything I will tell you.’ ”  [English Standard Version]

Nadiya stared at Mary Sage uncertainly. “Mary?” she said again. “You… uh…”

“Matthew two thirteen,” Mary Sage said, as if she hadn’t heard Nadiya. “ ‘Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”’ ” [NKJV] Her voice hitched at the very end, and she rested her head on her bent knees. “Nadiya?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared,” Mary Sage said, and her voice sounded dry, like the Nevada desert above them. _It should be dry,_ Nadiya thought. There was nothing about Mary Sage that was dry. She had a hot temper, but it wasn’t like fire – it was like a hurricane, wet and wild and powerful enough to sweep you off your feet.

Unless you were in the center. The eye. Where everything was still.

Nadiya cleared her throat. “Can… I do anything to help?” she asked.

In response, Mary Sage, her glasses still in her pocket, crawled over to the mattress and wrapped her arms around Nadiya’s waist, burying her head in her lap.

Nadiya froze in place, unsure of how to react. Mary Sage’s – embrace? – was tight, like she was grounding herself. Nadiya couldn’t help being reminded of this morning ( _God, was it really just this morning?_ ), waking up with Mary Sage in her arms. There’d been a little bit of hope. Waking up slowly in an isolated cabin, thinking they were safe.

Now they were in a sewer a thousand miles away, and Mary Sage was scared.

“It’s… it’ll be okay,” Nadiya said awkwardly, patting Mary Sage’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve gotten this far, right?”

“What if we just have to keep running?” Mary Sage asked, voice muffled and shaking. “What if we never get to stop? Just move from place to place forever so they can’t find us?”

“That won’t happen,” Nadiya said firmly, aware that she might well be lying. “We’ll figure it out. Mary. Mary, listen, I’m the smartest person I’ve ever met, Remy was going to be in the fucking Olympics, and Kardala is a literal _goddess_. We’ll figure it out, okay? Jesus. This isn’t going to last forever.”

Mary Sage gave a very shaky sigh that Nadiya could feel, hot and humid, even through her jeans. “Nad? Just promise you won’t… disappear, or anything. You almost died, okay, I don’t – don’t fuckin’ like that.”

“Yeah, I’m not planning on it,” Nadiya said. “They’ll have to try harder than that to get rid of me.”

Mary Sage finally lifted her head with something akin to a smile on her face. “Well, don’t let ‘em get the chance.”

“It’s not easy to take down Reed Richards.”

“Better not be,” Mary Sage agreed. “I don’t want you goin’ fuckin’ anywhere, Nad.” She lays her head back down in Nadiya’s lap for just a moment. “Not fuckin’ anywhere.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya makes an observation. Mary Sage cracks a code. Remy gets a letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to... THE ADVENTURE ZONE!
> 
> For real, though, sorry about being so long in updating, I was gone in California for like two weeks AND my laptop's off getting fixed. However, I now have almost a full month of backlogged chapters, so I should be posting every week for a while!

"How far does this go?" Remy squinted down the tunnel. The yellow light from Nadiya's flashlight was dim and watery in the complete darkness.

"Long ways," Nadiya said absently. "Like, fifteen miles, I think. At least. Until it gets gross. There's entrances all along, though, closest one is only a mile or two along..."

Remy frowned, glancing sideways at Nadiya. She'd seemed kind of distracted since she'd woken up. "You okay, Nad?"

She scowled at him. "I'm fine, Rembrandt. None of your business, so fuck off."

"It's kind of a little my business," he argued. "What if you have a concussion or something? What if you get sick? What if -"

"I'm  _fine_ ," Nadiya snapped. "Excuse me if I'm a bit upset about my life's work either being destroyed or being sold indiscriminately by people who have no rights to it." She glanced behind them. Kardala and Mary were trailing a bit behind, Kardala illuminating the tunnel with a handful of blue lightning. "If there's anyone you should worry about, it's them."

"What? Why?"

"Maybe not Kardala so much, but she's been acting weird. Irene-y. Look." Nadiya jerked her head back again, and Remy looked. Kardala said something to Remy that he couldn't hear over the crackle of the lightning, then grinned, and Mary snorted in laughter. "And then Mary Sage..." Nadiya trailed off.

"Is she okay?"

"Depends what you mean by that." Nadiya swept the flashlight beam across the tunnel floor, sending a cockroach scuttling away. Remy yelped, but Nadiya didn't react. "Relax," Nadiya said, annoyed. "Haven't you seen a cockroach before?"

"N...o," Remy admitted, a little sheepishly. "You  _have?_ "

"I've been down here before," Nadiya reminded him, "and when you're a broke grad student, you end up living in some interesting places. Plus, I've dissected cockroaches before. Pretty boring, really."

Remy made a face. "Still. Gross."

"Coward," Nadiya said, but amiably enough that it didn't hurt his feelings. "Anyways, on the subject of Mary Sage. I think relatively speaking, she's doing okay, more or less. It's just... overall? I don't know." The sound of her laughter drifting up to them again. "I don't know, Remy," Nadiya said quietly, and for the first time since he'd met her, Remy thought Nadiya sounded concerned. "I wish I could've used my lab. Maybe I could figure out if there was something about my stimplants that genuinely fucked with her head. I keep... fuck, I keep thinking through all my experiments with them, the stuff I did on myself, everything. I can't think of how it could've gone wrong. Or maybe it wasn't the stimplants, and she's just -" Nadiya broke off. "Anyways. Fuck if I know."

Remy's fingers were tapping a rapid tattoo on his thigh as he tried not to fidget with the bandage around his wrist. "It's not your fault," he said.

"Sure." Nadiya was looking surly again. "If this doesn't end with me getting a  _lot_ of money in compensation, I'm going to be pissed." She picked up the pace, leaving Remy a few steps behind.

For once, he didn't mind being on his own. He had to think. He felt like there was an answer to – something – just beyond what he could figure out. If his brain would stop jumping around for one second, he'd be able see what it was.

He knew it had something to do with the laptop. It had to. He should've decoded it before. He should've tried harder. It might be too late, now, it might not matter, but he had to try. It had to be  _something_.

When they stopped to rest, Remy went over to Mary. "Hey."

She was eating a power bar. "Hey."

"You're good with computers, right?"

"Yeah. Thought you were too, nerd."

Remy grinned. "I'm IT. I don't do coding, I just fix problems. Anyways, I have this... thing... that I could use some help with. You down?"

"Why not? Lemme at it."

They both sat down against the wall, and Remy, after a furtive look around that revealed nothing except Nadiya (staring at the brick as if she could vaporize it with heat vision) and Kardala (staring contemplatively into her handful of lightning). Then he pulled out the laptop and booted it up.

Mary whistled. "That a ten-bit encryption?"

"I don't know," Remy admitted. "I know I need to get into it, though. Can you crack the encryption?"

"Yeah, probably. I can try. Where'd you get this, anyways?" Mary asked, taking the laptop and starting to tap into it, her hair lifting slightly as her powers activated.

"It doesn't matter, does it?"

"Guess not. Whatever." Mary's typing became more rapid. "Damn. This is deep. Whoever it was must've been a sick coder. Cyber security or something."

Remy shifted uncomfortably, searching for any other subject. "Have you told Nadiya you like her yet?" he blurted.

" _God_ , Jump Boy, keep it down," Mary hissed, her head jerking up to look at Nadiya, but it was clear she hadn't heard. "'Course not, are you kidding? We're in a fuckin'… sewer, on the run, and you think that's a good time to tell Reed McScienceface Richards that I got a crush? Not a chance in hell."

"I dunno, I think it's a great idea," Remy said. "It's like, who knows what's going to happen next, right? So why not go for it?"

"You think she wants something like that right now?" Mary said, jerking her head back towards the computer screen and shoving her glasses up on her nose, squinting through them at the lines of scrolling code. "No fuckin' way. Nah, I'm, uh... not gonna put that on her. We're both dealing with our own shit. I'm not dumping mine on her as well. Wouldn't be fair."

"If you want to look at it that way, we're always going to have our own shit," Remy said, shrugging. "Right? It's not just going to go away."

"Maybe." Mary's fingers slowed slightly in their frantic typing. "But... I don't wanna fuck this up. I'm only gonna get one shot at it, right? And -" She suddenly froze as the computer screen blinked white. "Holy shit. I think I got it."

Remy snatched the laptop out of her hands. His heart revved to racing speed.  _Please let this actually be something_ , he thought.  _Not just another red herring. Please let this tell me something about what happened to_ _them_ _._

The screen blinked a few times, then a single folder popped up.  _Read This First_ , one of the documents said.

"Remy?" Mary said. "You look weird. You okay?"

He clicked on it.

 _Dear Remy,_   _dear Michael_ , the file read.  _I'm hoping it's one of you reading this. If you are, it means I'm gone. It means she found me_ _–_ _us_ _– out. And it means you're in terrible danger. But you have to know everything. Ignorance is always a worse fate than knowledge._

Remy scrubbed at his eyes. That was what she used to say to them when they complained about homework. God, he missed her so much. Then he kept reading.

_When your father and I were younger, we did some work for the government. Secret stuff. Research on hypnosis, and anti-terrorism,_ _but mostly on a_ _new science we called... bonds. These bonds are what holds everything in the universe together,_ _connecting each person or thing to anything else. You've learned about ionic and covalent bonds in biology; these aren't that different, really. More powerful. Or maybe just easier to exploit._

_We weren't the only ones working on this project. There was another woman on our_ _team. Her name was Martine._

"Remy?" Mary sounded scared. "Remy, what is it?"

_I didn't_ _quite_ _trust her from the beginning. She seemed too interested, not just academically. She was a biochemist, a neurologist who specified in hormone study. She managed to create a heightened form of oxytocin that strengthened the bonds, creating artificial ones between small groups of people. She could manipulate them, control certain aspects of their bodies or even their minds. Our supervisors grew worried, and one day, they unexpectedly shut down the entire project. All three of us were out of a job._

_We kept in touch. Your father and I got married, started research at our lab in Maryland. Remember, I showed you boys around one time? Michael, you were born, and then you a few years later, Remy. We were happier than we could ever remember. We were_ glad _that our project got shut down._

_Martine wasn't._

_She moved down to Florida, but I would still e-mail with her sometimes. She was my friend. I wanted to trust her_ _, especially then, when she was my only other connection to that time in my life, something I could talk about with no one except her and your father_ _. That was my own fault, I suppose. I should've known better. I did know better. You're like me, Remy. We always want to believe the best of people._

_Martine was continuing her research, outside of government approval. I didn't turn her in, of course; she wasn't breaking confidentiality, just expanding into her own field, or at least that's what I thought. Then, when you were about ten, I got a worrying message from her. She was excited - she'd found someone who shared her ambitions. They were working together to expand her ideas. I could read between the lines, though._ _He was a fanatic, a_ _revolutionary who was the p_ _erfect person to enable her increasingly dangerous research. Still, I didn't think much of it. She had no way to implement any of her ideas. I kept e-mailing with her, keeping tabs on what she was doing._

_Then everything changed._

_It was only three days ago,_ _three days before I'm writing this_ _,_ _but by the time you read this - I don't know. I'm so sorry, Remy. Right before the Olympics_ _, too_ _. The worst possible timing. Martine called me. She was so excited, but I heard the edge to her voice that made me worry. She said she'd just read some revolutionary new research on body modification, published by a young academic, a wildly precocious young woman named Nadiya Jones from_ _a university in Nevada_ _._

"Mary?" Remy said, almost unaware his mouth was moving. "Get Nadiya and Kardala. Now. Please."

_Martine_ _believed that the combination of her altered oxytocin_ _(_ _made much more stable over years of experimentation_ _)_ _and these_ _stimplants_ _could create people with superhuman abilities, connected with each other, and more importantly, with her. She believed, in essence, that she could create an army of_ _supersoldiers_ _under her control. She and Richard could use them to force the revolution they wanted. She mentioned in passing that he wasn't completely on board yet - something about wanting a fair election - but it was clear that she didn't think that would work, and there was no question that they would need to resort to her plan._

_After so many years of keeping my mouth shut, I couldn't anymore. I told her exactly what I thought of that plan. Things got ugly. She threatened me. She threatened you two. I hung up on her mid-rant, but the damage was done._

_She knows where we live. She knows where I work. I don't know what she's going to do, and I don't know how to stop her._

_If you're reading this, either of you, hopefully it means it's not too late. Use this information. Use the information from our research years ago on bonds. I know this is so much to put on you, but I'm praying still that this finds its way into your hands. Who else could I trust?_

_I'm so sorry. Not only for putting_ _this_ _burden on you, but for not acting sooner. I was afraid, not of Martine, but of destroying my relationship with her, however toxic it was. I thought I would be able to see this coming, stop it before it got to this point. I wanted to believe Martine would never go to these lengths. But she's more powerful than ever, maybe even more than I know._

_I love you both. I hope you'll never read this. I hope I'll be able to delete this document and forget it ever existed. Just in case, though, all the research your father and I did on bonds all those years ago is on this computer as well. DO NOT SHOW THIS TO ANYONE YOU WOULD NOT TRUST WITH YOUR LIFE. I made that mistake once, and don't want you to repeat it._

_If it isn't the two of you reading this, whoever you are, please use this information for good, or destroy it. If it is, I trust your hearts. Good luck._ _Your father seals this with his love as well._

_Love,_

_Mom (Christine Rembrandt)_

Remy was crying in earnest now, the screen blurry in front of his eyes. He scrubbed at his face with the edge of his hoodie sleeve. As much as he wanted to curl up and not move for a few minutes – or preferably a few days – he didn't have that luxury.

"Guys?" he said, glancing up to see his three friends crowded around him, varying degrees of worry on their faces. "We have a real big problem." He took a shuddering breath. "You need to hear this..."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary listens to the voices in her head. Nadiya blanks out. Remy finds a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you didn't think anything was, like, worked out. Of course not. This is just the beginning.
> 
> Chapter warnings: Dissociation, descriptions of graphic violence (no violence actually takes place)

Mary's head was full of static.

"So it was deliberate," Nadiya said. She had the rigid, mouth-tight look on her face she did whenever she was upset and didn't want to show it. Mary'd seen that look a lot in the short time she'd known Nadiya. " _Fucking_ Martine took my research and twisted it into - into mind control. Fuck. _Fuck_."

Remy nodded. "And we all have that stuff in us now," he said." He still sounded like he was going to cry, and kept wiping his nose with his sleeve. "The stimplants and the oxytocin and everything. And the bonds are what make our powers activate when we're near each other. And she did something to - to my mom and dad, and -"

"Breathe, Remy," Nadiya said sharply. "Don't be a coward. We'll figure this out. It's my tech she's using, I can figure out a way around it."

"We should make camp for a few hours," Kardala said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. "You are in no state to move, l- Remy. We have not slept in a long time. I, as a god, have no need for human things like that, of course, but I may as well join you in order to... recharge."

"Just a couple hours," Remy said. "Then... we have to keep moving. Have to figure this out."

Nadiya nodded, sitting down against a wall. "Of course we do. And we will. Obviously."

Kardala sat down as well, immediately closing her eyes. "Sleep well. I expect you all to be at your peak condition in order to solve this problem. Kardala does not want to be controlled."

"Yeah. Okay." Remy closed his laptop and put it back in his bag. Then he leaned on Nadiya's shoulder, since it was just the right height to lean against. She frowned, but didn't move away, just closed her eyes.

No one noticed that Mary's eyes were still open.

It felt like there was a short in her brain, fizzing and spilling electrical sparks across its surface. She'd been right. She'd been right all along. It was a conspiracy. The government was in on it, and Martine, and Richard, and Addison and Flanagan had probably been in on it too, and Remy's parents, and Nadiya's research, and probably Irene somehow or other, and _she couldn't trust anyone_. Everyone wanted to hurt Space Cadet.

She'd been right about this. How many other things was she right about? _They all want to hurt her. They'll abandon her at the first opportunity. They’ll turn her in to the government, or to Martine, and Martine will lock her up and never let her go. She'll be pumped full of chemicals until she can’t remember her own name, until her brain melts out her ears, until she claws her skin off screaming. They'll throw her in jail like they did her parents, put her in a cell all by herself and throw away the key. They'll get Addison and Flanagan back, force her to shut down the electronics again, kill millions of people. They'll use her until she breaks, and then she'll disappear, like Remy's parents did._

She had to get out of here.

In a haze, she stood, silently gathered her things. She had enough food to be okay for a little while. Nadiya had shown them the way out of the sewers. She'd leave, hide, something. Away from the others.

 _It's the only way,_ the static told her. _You can't trust them. You can't trust anyone. You can't even trust your own mind._

It felt like a vice around her chest, her throat, her head. She fought back the seizure that threatened the edges of her consciousness. She couldn't deal with that now. She had to lean into the static and get the fuck out of here, it didn't matter where to. She took the flashlight as well - they had Kardala, she could use her magic lightning-y powers or something. Or Nadiya had a little flashlight on her key ring. There was a little light from the dim fluorescents overhead. They'd be fine.

She shone the flashlight down the tunnel and set off, silently, quickly, and without a backwards glance.

 

Nadiya jerked awake to Remy's panicked voice saying, "Mary? _Mary?_ Oh, God -"

Nadiya was about to ask what was wrong, but as soon as she opened her eyes, it was obvious. It wasn't as much a problem with Mary as it was a problem _without_ Mary. As in, she wasn't there at all.

"Shit." Nadiya's mind fed her fifteen different possible scenarios before she could even process what this meant. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Remy said. His eyes were wide and panicked. "I woke up, and she was gone. No note, no - no nothing, she's _gone_." Nadiya could see him shaking.

"Let's – let's think this through," Nadiya said. "Looks like her stuff's gone. Plus, we're still here. She must've left on her own."

"Maybe, but what if Martine can use those bonds to control her and made her leave?" Remy clenched his hands into his hair at his temples.

"She would've done that before now," Nadiya said, trying to think logically. "Plus, Martine is locked up somewhere, remember? No, I think this is all Mary. We still have to find her, though."

"She could be anywhere," Remy said. He looked at his watch, took a sharp breath, and his hands moved to his face. "We've been asleep for _hours_. Hours and hours. You said it was only a few miles to the nearest exit. Or she could still be down here somewhere."

"She shouldn't -" Nadiya broke off. "Well, all we have to do is -" And stopped again. Mary hadn't left a trace. There was no telling where she could've gone. She couldn't make something out of nothing. She had to have _evidence_ to draw a conclusion, and there was no evidence.

"I might be able to help," a soft voice said from behind her.

Both she and Remy jerked in surprise, and then Remy said " _Irene!_ " and practically tackled her with a hug. "What are you doing here, there's still three of us, you shouldn't have -"

"Kardala let me out," Irene said in a strange voice. "She couldn't do anything to help find Mary, and she thought maybe I could."

Remy looked like he wanted to ask more questions, but Nadiya cut him off. "Can you?" she said, voice sharper than she meant it to be. Irene wasn't quite meeting her eyes, and she couldn't help remembering the last time they had talked.

"Yes," Irene said resolutely. "Remy, can I see the laptop, please?"

Remy hesitated, but passed it over. Irene opened it, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "This will depend on whether we can find a signal," she said, chewing on her lip. After a few minutes figuring out how the old laptop worked, she opened a spreadsheet and started typing things into it. Nadiya paced restlessly, resisting the urge to ask Irene if she _really_ had to be that organized right now, if that was _really_ her priority. Finally, Irene handed the laptop back to Remy. "There," she said. "Those are the names and information for everyone from the Fellowship. We need help, and information, and some of them probably knew Mary better than we do. I think we need to find someone. We can't do this on our own anymore."

Remy's face cleared slightly, and his fingers flew over the keyboard. "I have a signal - pretty faint, but there," he said. "Need to get this done fast so they don't notice..."

"We'll give you a little room," Irene said, and Remy nodded, clicking through pages already.

Reluctantly, Nadiya followed Irene a short distance away. The dim electric lights overhead barely illuminated her features, even a foot or two away as they were. Mary had taken the flashlight.

"Nadiya," Irene started, but Nadiya cut her off.

"I know," she snapped. "I was a jerk. I was mean. You needed to be pushed, we needed Kardala. I'm not sorry."

"You're right," Irene said. "We did need Kardala." She met Nadiya's eyes, held her gaze, and the brown of her irises seemed to catch Nadiya and hold her there in the dim light. "But now we need me."

Nadiya didn't know what to say to that. "Yeah," she finally said lamely. "We... you..." She closed her eyes, shutting out Irene's steady ones. "Thank you," she said stiffly.

"I understand your reservations about me, Nadiya Jones," Irene said, and Nadiya flinched a little – it felt like she was being scolded – "but we need to trust each other, and listen to each other, and that does _not_ mean bullying or pushing your teammates until they do what you think is best. You need to consider the possibility that despite how smart you are, other people could have good points as well. We're in very real danger, and can't afford anything else. All right?"

"Okay," Nadiya mumbled. "Irene?"

"Yes?"

"It was a really good idea," Nadiya said. "Trying to find someone else from the Fellowship."

"Thank you." The set of Irene's shoulders relaxed. "Honestly, I don't know if it'll work, but it's a start, at least."

"Did you hear everything from last night? Before we fell asleep."

"I did, actually," Irene said.

"That's... different from before, isn't it?" Nadiya asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. "You can remember things from when you were her. Or - from when you - how would you put it?"

"That's a good a way as any," Irene said with a shrug. "I had a talk with her. Maybe that helped."

Before Nadiya could ask what the _hell_ that meant and how it worked, Remy shouted. "I think I found somebody!"

Both Nadiya and Irene immediately went over to him, looking over his shoulder. "Who?"

"Jamie," Remy said, and Nadiya recoiled. "Looks like she's renting an apartment by the month outside of LA under the name Michael Commons. I have an address. It's not far, and it's not out of the question that Mary could've gone towards LA, hitchhiked or something."

"Does it have to be Jamie?" Nadiya groaned. "She's pathetic. She's a jerk."

"She's the only one I could find info on," Remy said, shaking his head. "Everybody else must've completely covered their tracks. I'm gonna..." He opened a message to Mary Sage, using the frequency she'd used in Halleluland, and dropped the address into it. "I don't know if she'll pick up on that, but I hope so. that'd be the best case scenario. That, or we run into Mary as we're leaving, catch up with her or she decided to come back or something..."

"I don't –" Nadiya started, but then cut herself off. She didn't have a better plan. Mary Sage was gone, they were still being hunted down by god-knows-who, and they were running low on food.

"Fine," she sighed. "Let's go see Jamie." And then, because she was having a lot of feelings and didn't know what to do with any of them, she said "Fuck," rather vehemently.

It didn't make her feel better.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene makes connections. Remy chimes in. Nadiya sulks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter one this week, but I promise next week I'll be back on my BS, and starting to bring in the NPCs!

"Oh, God. Turn the sun down. I'm dying," Nadiya said, squinting her eyes shut as she pulled herself off the ladder. "Holy shit, is it always this bright?"

"We've been down in a nearly pitch-black sewer for an entire day, more or less," Irene said dryly. "What did you expect?"

"Ugh, I don't know," Nadiya complained. "Not horrific scorching rays assaulting my corneas." her eyes opened cautiously. They adjusted, and she was able to look around without her eyes watering. "How the hell are we going to get to Los Angeles?"

"Party bus," Remy said immediately.

"Party bus? Where the hell are we going to get -"

"Party bus," Irene agreed, pointing across the street to a small bar-and-casino where a group of obviously drunk people were stumbling out the door and onto a silvery bus.

"I don't know why you two think that's going to work," Nadiya groused.

"Trust in us," Irene said lightly, leading the way across the street and over to the bus. "Excuse me," she said to a thirty-something, bleary-eyed woman with limp brown hair. "I don't suppose you're heading to Los Angeles?"

"Yeah," the woman said agreeably. "Jim's getting married, aren't you, Jim?" There was a muffled _hell yeah!_ from the bus. "You wanna come with?"

"Please," Irene said, and the woman stepped aside, letting the three of them climb onto the bus.

"How...?" Nadiya said, shocked, as they made their way to a group of free seats.

Irene pointed to the rainbow flag hanging in one of the windows. "Like recognizes like," she said serenely.

Remy, right behind Nadiya, sputtered. "Wait -"

"I'm a lesbian who was raised by two women, Remy," Irene explained, settling into a window seat. "You think I wouldn't recognize a gay party bus?"

Remy dropped into the seat beside her and gave her a very large hug. "Solidarity! I mean, I'm not a lesbian, I'm bi, but solidarity! Nadiya?"

"I'm going to sit over here," Nadiya said, picking the window seat across the aisle and several rows back from the other two. She pretended she didn't see Remy's face fall slightly. It wasn't that she wasn't a lesbian, because she _was_ , but she didn't want to sit with them right now. She'd never been so long without some time to herself. Everyone on the bus was _way_ too loud, and the sun was still a little too bright, and Nadiya sort of wished she could crawl out of her skin.

 _Mary Sage, where are you?_ she thought miserably.

Across the way, Irene had struck up a conversation with the brown-haired woman from before, and they were having a lively chat, Irene smiling broadly in a way Nadiya hadn't seen before. Remy, though he still looked jittery and unsure, eyes too wide, was talking to a guy whose shirt proclaimed him to be JIM, the guy who was getting married, apparently.

It wasn't fair.

Irene and Remy finally had some time to be in their element. They were both so _good_ with people. Remy and Irene had figured out how to get to Jamie's. Remy and Mary Sage had cracked the encryption the night before. What had Nadiya done? Nothing. It wasn't like there was a lab she could do work in, or research she could analyze. There wasn't even a strongly-worded letter she could write, like she did when a committee rejected her request for a grant out of hand. No, Nadiya Jones was on a fucking party bus from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and she was useless, and she _hated_ it.

Nadiya pulled her feet up onto the seat and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her PhD wasn't much good here, either. Four-plus years of studying and working her ass off to get recognized and published and validated, and she made one bad job choice, and now the only thing her research was going to be used for was taking over the world, apparently. She felt as paranoid as Mary Sage usually was, wondering what modifications Martine had made that the Fellowship hadn't told her about, wondering if it was reversible.

Mostly, though, she was thinking about the bonds.

She closed her eyes, concentrating as hard as she could, and to her shock, she felt a tiny tug behind her heart, pointing her towards Remy and Irene. She must be imagining that - it was like a _magnet_ , that wasn't how biochemical bonds worked. Then again, if Remy's mom was to be believed, there was a lot about bonds they didn't even know about yet. She needed to go through those other documents on Remy's laptop, figure out exactly what they were dealing with, scientifically.

She wondered if she had a bond with Mary Sage.

Well, of course she did. According to the theory, everything and everyone had a bond with everyone and everything else. But something more than that. Something like what she just felt tugging her towards Irene and Remy. Though, admittedly, when she thought about Mary Sage, there was a healthy dose of nausea and head-spinning along with the heart tugging.

What was the difference between bonds and just being really, really gay for someone?

Nadiya let out a frustrated huff and turned to stare out the window as the bus pulled out of the parking lot. Not that she _liked_ Mary Sage. Much. It was just that she kind of liked looking at her, and she really fucking missed her when she was gone, which was more often than not in the past couple days. It was just that she kept thinking about that particular Biblical quote Mary Sage had picked, and how it was about maybe the gayest relationship in the whole Bible. It was just that when she thought about Mary Sage and her sandpaper laugh and her freckles and her weird, annoying voice and her soft body against Nadiya's chest in the Colorado cabin, she wanted to cry, a little.

 _Fuck_.

She was never telling Irene or Remy - or Kardala, for that matter - any of this. Probably not Mary Sage herself, either.

If they ever found her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya barges in. Kardala makes a point. Jamie says fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: There is discussion of gender identity and identifying as nonbinary in this chapter, especially using one’s own gender identity to help hide from authority. I outsourced and edited, BUT I am still a cis woman, so if anyone finds issue with it, please let me know!

“Thanks, Ellen!” Irene waved towards the bus. “Congratulations again, Jim! Enjoy the wedding!”

Irene had somehow persuaded the bus to take them directly to Jamie’s doorstep. Nadiya watched as the silver behemoth pulled away. She didn’t know whether she was glad to be off it or upset that they had reached Jamie’s apartment. She at least had to give Jamie kudos for being inconspicuous; no one would ever be able to guess that this complex was the one that housed an ex-cultist on the run. It was drab, beige, indistinguishable from another other complex within miles. The area wasn’t quite sketchy, but it walked the edge like a tightrope.

Remy consulted his hand, where he’d written down the address. “Should be around the back,” he decided, leading the way towards the other side of the building. “Number 334.” He bounded up the stairs two at a time, Nadiya and Irene following more slowly.

Jamie’s apartment, like the complex in general, had no distinguishing features. Nothing hung in the windows, not even curtains; the blinds were pulled shut. There was no welcome mat, no windchimes, no shoes by the door.

Remy knocked three times and then once more for extra measure.

After a moment of tense waiting, the door cracked open a few inches. “Shit,” a familiar voice said, and slammed the door shut.

Or tried to. Nadiya’s foot was in the way, by virtue of her shoving Remy to the side and jamming it into the gap. “Jamie.”

“ _Don’t_ –” Jamie started.

“Let us in, or I swear I will inform every government official within a hundred miles that you’re using a fake identity,” Nadiya spat. She could feel her nerves fraying with every minute they were outside, exposed.

“Fine, _fine_ , just get in here,” Jamie hissed after a second, opening the door wide enough to let the three of them in. Nadiya shoved past her, with Remy and Irene following. Once all three were inside, Jamie slammed the door shut again, locked the doorknob, turned the lock above it, and slid the latch in place.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” she said, finally at a normal volume, turning towards the trio.

Nadiya raised her eyebrows. At the ‘Berg, Jamie had presented mostly in feminine ways: she’d worn her dull brown hair long, cat’s eye glasses glittering with sequins at the corners, professional skirts and blouses.  Nadiya remembered seeing her peach-pink top up close when Jamie had shoved her.

Now, Jamie looked completely different. She’d shaved her head, and the cat’s eye glasses had been replaced with plain wire-framed spectacles. She was wearing perhaps the blandest clothing Nadiya had ever seen: blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a grey cardigan. She looked many times more nervous than she had before.

Then again, Nadiya reflected, the three of them must look pretty different as well, after days of being on the run and sleeping in sewers. She knew her own hair was in tangles, and she still had dust coating most of her clothes from the fight in the university building. Remy looked on the verge of exhaustion despite their brief rest, his eyes overbright; Irene looked she was holding up for the most part, but she was difficult to ruffle at the best of times. Speaking of Irene –

“Jamie, would you mind if I –” she started, then, like stop-motion, unfolded into Kardala, who breathed a sigh of relief and finished, “– let Kardala out. Much better.”

Jamie let out a very startled squeak and stumbled backwards. “What the fuck?”

“Long story,” Remy said, collapsing onto a lumpy couch. “Oh, that’s good. Hey guys? Couches. They’re real great. Great couch, Jamie.” His eyes fluttered closed.

Jamie turned helplessly – and angrily – to Nadiya. “What the _fuck_ ,” she repeated.

“Give him a break,” Nadiya said. “Do you have coffee?”

“No, I don’t drink it.”

Nadiya stared at Jamie, who stared back defiantly. “You don’t drink coffee?”

“I like tea,” she said defensively.

“Fine. Whatever, I guess. Tea?”

“You could’ve – you didn’t – you fuckers threaten your way inside, and then –” Jamie sputtered.

“Water, then,” Nadiya snapped, “Listen, _Jamie_ , we’ve had a pretty tough couple days, so I’d prefer you’d keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Fine, _Nadiya Jones_ ,” Jamie spat back. “I’ll make you tea, whatever. But then you’re out of here.”

“It’d be my pleasure,” Nadiya said, practically throwing herself into a wooden kitchen chair, scraping it over linoleum. “Kardala?”

“Yes?” Kardala’s voice came from the living room.

“Just – chill for a while?”

“Kardala will chill,” Kardala agreed, coming back into view with a book and settling down on couch next to Remy, who put his legs over her lap immediately. When Nadiya kept staring at her, she frowned. “Did you not think I, Kardala, the thunder goddess, could read?” she accused.

“Uh,” Nadiya said, then shrugged. It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t thought Kardala could read as that she hadn’t given the matter much thought, or pictured Kardala on a couch with a battered 70’s sci-fi paperback and a worn-out Remy cuddling up with her, which was what was happening before her eyes.

Jamie slammed a mug down onto the table, and Nadiya jumped, but wrapped her hands around it. “Now,” Jamie said, sitting in the other chair with her own mug. “I’ll ask again: what the fuck.”

“You first,” Nadiya challenged, and took a long drink from her mug. It was green tea, and it was hot enough that it scalded her mouth and throat, but it was a relief to just be in a place where she was sitting down and drinking something hot.

Plus, there was something about the apartment that reminded Nadiya of the crappy overpriced apartments she lived in when she was a student, jumping from one to another as the academic year turned over, dragging her dumpster-dived furniture with her. It was almost comforting, in a weird way.

“Fine. Yeah.” Jamie sipped from her own mug. “So, you know when the ‘Berg was blowing up, Martine had turned out to be, like, murderous, all that?”

“Obviously. I was there. Little busy, though.” Nadiya coughed. That tea really had been too hot to drink like that.

“Some of us got out together,” Jamie explained, dragging her fingers along the lacquered surface of her mug. “Seven of us in two skimmers. Me, Addison, Flanagan, Grace, Jonesy, Pridmore, and Abbey. We got to shore and booked the first commercial flight as far away as we could before our cards were deactivated, before anyone could know to look for us, all that. We flew into LA and sort of… went from there. Addison and Flanagan stayed together, I think, and Grace and the others.”

“Not you?” Nadiya asked.

Jamie gritted her teeth. “I wanted to be as fucking far from everyone else as I could be,” she said. “As far away from that whole shitshow as possible. I just want to be left alone. What’s up with the three of you? You look terrible.”

Nadiya gave her the short version – that they’d been chased down by federal agents after turning Martine and Richard in, their cross-country trek, Mary Sage and Remy getting kidnapped. Jamie bristled when she got to the fight at the university and how their attacker not only had superhuman abilities, but the Fellowship logo.

“Anyways, we escaped into the sewers, but then Remy uncovered some new info, and Mary Sage disappeared,” Nadiya finished. “We don’t know where the fuck she is, but Irene suggested we needed someone’s help, and you were the one we could find. Michael Commons, huh?”

“After Michael B. Jordan. I’m nonbinary,” Jamie said. “Didn’t come up at the Fellowship, though Irene knows, obviously, since she was in HR. I’d gotten my gender legally changed in California – I’m from the Eureka area – right before I shipped out to the Fellowship. I decided on another name so fucks like you couldn’t track me down. Mostly I like Jamie more, but it works for now. If people are looking for a girl named Jamie Meadows, they’re going to have to look pretty damn hard.”

Nadiya decided against pointing out that _they_ had found her. “Good call,” she said instead, only a little grudgingly. “You’re buried pretty deep. Are you still using she/her pronouns?”

“He/him, around here. Again, not always my favorite, but you do what you have to do when you were involved in a superpower cult.” Jamie shifted, crossing one leg over the other. “You can still use she/her, though, I like those better. If you have to talk about me. Which you shouldn’t have to.”

“Are you completely off the grid?”

Jamie nodded. “I withdrew all the cash I could at as many different ATMs as I could and then closed down my accounts,” she said. “Doing some odd jobs around the neighborhood, making enough cash to survive. _Fuck_ ,” she spat suddenly. “Fuck Martine and fuck Richard and all of them. It was supposed to be a job in fucking – risk understanding. I knew Parson from a gig I had in Gilroy a couple years back, he recruited me to his department.” She laughed hollowly. “Fucked that thing up, huh? Risks not understood. Risks really fucking misunderstood, as a matter of fact. Misunderstood enough that here I am.” She clutched one hand on the edge of the table, fingernails digging into the wood. “Broke and on the run from a Benjamin Franklin cult. What the hell, right?”

“I’ll drink to that,” Nadiya said, and drank some more of her tea. It really wasn’t that bad. “My lab got obliterated in the fight in Nevada, and it looks like my upcoming patents got stolen. My career in academia’s fucked at this point.”

“What a mess.” Jamie’s face twists like she’s trying to keep herself from crying. It gives Nadiya the same feeling as fingernails dragged across a chalkboard. “What a fucking mess, right?”

“Jamie,” Nadiya said abruptly. “Do you know where Mary Sage might be?”

“I don’t have a clue, man,” Jamie said blankly. “Addison and Flanagan might. They knew her way better than I did. I barely met her.”

“You know where they are?”

“Yeah… yeah. They’re about an hour north of here.”

“Can you take us there?”

Jamie looked up, and her brownish eyes sparked in realization. “Yeah. I have a rental. I could drive you up.”

Nadiya stood up from the table, walked into the living room, and poked both Kardala and Remy in the shoulders. “Get up. We’re leaving,” she said.

“Nadiya, we just got here, can’t we –”

“I can’t stand to stay here another minute with Jamie,” Nadiya interrupted him. “Up. She’s going to drive up to Addison and Flanagan.”

The look Jamie gave her as she shepherded the other two out the door was undeniably _thank you._

Nadiya turned away, her face burning. Had she really just done something nice for Jamie of her own free will, at the expense of her own comfort? “Don’t read anything into it,” she muttered as she passed by. “You’re still a loser.”

“Sure,” Jamie said, and gave her the smallest of smiles.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Addison changes the channel. Irene broods. Kardala gives a pat on the back (metaphorically).

Jamie’s car pulled away almost before they closed the doors. Nadiya couldn’t really blame her; it was a cramped, tense ride, and Jamie drove exactly the speed limit. (Like Irene, Nadiya noted; apparently that’s what you do when you’re on the run. Action movies had lied to her.)

In front of them stood a small, slightly shabby house. Nadiya glanced from Remy to Kardala. “You think?”

Remy shrugged, walking up to the door and knocking. All three of them waited, then the door cracked open to reveal the terrified face of Addison.

“What do you want?” they said. “Get out of here. Tell Martine we aren’t –”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Remy said, holding his hands up nonthreateningly. “Why would we be from Martine?”

“I mean, not only were we the ones who fucked her up at the ‘Berg,” Nadiya pointed out, “but she’s locked up.”

Addison glanced down the street, then opened the door. “Come in,” they said warily. “If you were from Martine, you just would’ve blown the door open, probably.”

“Jamie brought us,” Nadiya said. Addison looked much like she remembered them: a person in their later thirties, a little soft around the middle, thinning hair. Open, friendly face that was currently tense with anxiety.

They relaxed slightly. “Oh. Well, that’s better, at least.”

“Addison?” a voice called from the next room.

“Coming,” Addison said, hurrying through the doorway. “You okay?”

The person on the couch – Flanagan, Nadiya recalled – shrugged jerkily. “Who is it?”

“Ahh, people from the Fellowship, escapees,” Addison said. “Nadiya Jones, Remy, uh, Kardala. Remember them?”

“Yeah.” Flanagan turned to look at them from the couch. Her thick, shoulder-length black hair was disheveled where it was hanging around her face, and she looked tired. She seemed a little younger than Addison – early thirties, maybe. “Hi. How’d you get here?”

“Cross-country road trip,” Remy said. “Hey, could you let us crash here for at least a night? We’re way tired.”

Addison glances at Flanagan, who nods. “Okay,” they said. “Yeah, sure. Just gotta stay on the DL, you know?”

“No, we know, we’re on the run too,” Remy said with a nod, and collapsed onto the couch, leaving some space between him and Flanagan.

“Nadiya? Kardala? You can sit,” Addison said, motioning vaguely around the space. “Sorry about the state of things.” They made a helpless gesture, then let their arms fall at their sides. “It’s… uh, a hell of a time finding a place in Cali with not much money. This was already furnished, so…”

“We slept in the sewers earlier today,” Remy mumbled from where he was rubbing his face into a pillow. “This place is great. Hey Nad, you aren’t going to yank us out of here again in half an hour, right? I could, like, fall asleep?”

“We’ll see,” Nadiya said grimly. “Do you two know where Mary Sage is?”

“What?” Addison said in confusion. “Why would we know?”

There was a thump as Kardala settled heavily onto the floor. “She ran away,” she said plainly.

“Yeah. And we don’t know where she is, and…” Remy trailed off. “We thought she might have come this way.”

Nadiya thought back to the tug she felt on the bus, towards Irene and Remy. If Mary had the same connection with Addison and Flanagan, she could very well be somewhere nearby.

Addison shook their head. “I’ll think about it,” they promised. “She’s been with you?” Nadiya nodded, and Addison let out a sigh of relief. “That’s, uh, that’s good. We were kinda worried about her after all the kerfuffle on the ‘Berg.”

“Mary Sage, of the robot angels, has been with us,” Kardala confirmed, leaning back against the couch. “Until today.”

“Addison,” Nadiya broke in, “why did you think we were with Martine? She’s in jail, we dropped her at the White House and everything.”

“Oh.” Addison chewed on their lip. “Oh. Right. About that.” They picked up a remote and turned the TV on, flipping through channels and back-logged episodes until they found what they were looking for. They fiddled with the remote for a minute, cursing mildly and hitting it against their hand, and then paused the screen.

It was C-Span, Nadiya could tell – she’d watched countless hours to fill up the times she was home alone, her father working somewhere else at whatever base they lived on. There were a crowd of people on-screen, all important-looking and wearing suits.

And one of them was Martine.

“Fuck,” Nadiya said quietly. “When was this?”

“Couple days ago,” Addison said. “The, uh… the day after everything went topsy-turvy at the Fellowship. She showed up at a press conference.” They turn to look at the three. “She’s not in jail, guys. She’s up and about, and probably looking for us.”

 

The room was quiet for a moment.

 _Oh, shit,_ Kardala heard Irene say.

“I thought she’d go to jail,” Remy said in a small voice.

Addison shook their head. “Too smart for that,” they said. Flanagan reached up and grabbed their wrist, and they took her hand, holding tightly. “No, whatever she’s up to, she’s not done.”

“Should’ve known,” Remy mumbled. “Should’ve… fuck. She was planning this for years. Of course she’d have a backup plan.”

“What is it, though?” Nadiya said. “The Fellowship’s gone. Most of the people are, too. Richard – Dick – he was in bad shape when last we saw him.”

Addison shook their head. “I have no idea,” they admitted. “We’ve just been trying to stay off her radar.”

“Maybe it has to do with the people in the Fellowship,” Nadiya said, finally giving in and sitting in a nearby armchair. “Me, because of my research, right? The stimplants. Remy because of his parents.”

Addison gave Remy a questioning look, but Remy shook his head. “Please don’t ask,” he said. “I don’t really… not right now.”

“So, background was probably one factor,” Nadiya continued. “And then… special abilities? Addison, Flanagan?”

Addison glanced at Flanagan. “We already worked really well together,” they offered. “We were, uh, friends before the Fellowship. Worked together, y’know, on some pretty cool energy tech. Guess that’s why our powers turned out the way they did.”

Nadiya nodded. “All right. And Jamie knew Parson…” She glanced at Kardala, then away. Kardala frowned. She couldn’t tell what Nadiya was thinking.

 _She’s wondering why I got chosen,_ Irene said softly.

_That is surely obvious. Because of me._

_They didn’t know about you, though,_ Irene said. _Right?_ Her thoughts became more troubled. _I don’t even know why they chose me._

Though she wasn’t communicating it to Kardala, Kardala could sense what Irene was thinking next, as if to herself: _Why_ did _they pick me? There’s no reason… they needed an HR person. I’m good at my job, but they could’ve gotten anyone for that._ And then flashes of words: _shortish, plain, upperish middle class, average personality, average grades._

Kardala realized that that was what Irene was thinking of herself: average.

 _Nothing special,_ she concluded, just as Irene thought it as well.

Irene’s thoughts stuttered to a halt at their sudden synchronicity.

_Irene Baker?_

_Yeah?_

_You are…_ Kardala shifted uncomfortably on the thin rug, and Remy gave her a questioning look, which she ignored. _You are not nothing special. You_ are _special._

_Because of you?_

Kardala paused, trying to think that through. _Yes. And no._

_Please explain a little more, Kardala, I’m having trouble following._

_You… are a prison,_ Kardala said hesitantly. _You know this. I have stated it previously. But you are also a… vessel?_ She sighed to herself. _And a person._

_Thank you, I think?_

Kardala shook her head slightly. This time both Nadiya and Remy glanced at her, but she waved them off. They were still discussing each member of the Fellowship. (Irene knew all of them.)

 _It is not just anyone who could stand up to a goddess,_ Kardala said finally. _As you have stood up to me. You have a powerful will, Irene Baker, and…_ She searched for a way to say it. _And the ability to see what others do not. You knew what Nadiya Jones was thinking, didn’t you?_

 _I did._ Irene subsides into silence. _Thank you, Kardala,_ she said after a moment, and the voice is slightly less heavy. _Sorry. I guess I had just let things get to me._

 _I do not mind._ And Kardala found – to her surprise – that she didn’t, really.

In fact, the presence of Irene in the back of her mind, quiet and firm and guiding… was becoming almost a comfort. Not that she needed comforting.

 _For what it’s worth, I like you too,_ Irene said, and it sounded like she was laughing.

Kardala smiled in spite of herself. _I am a goddess with powers beyond imagination. Who would not like me?_

 _Sure, Kardala,_ Irene said, still with that amusement. _Sure._


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flanagan takes a compliment. Addison tries their best. Nadiya thinks about science.

“I’m going to die,” Remy moaned. “This is it. This is how I go.”

“It’s just curry,” Flanagan said, embarrassed. “Pretty easy.”

“You don’t understand,” Remy said, pointing his fork at Flanagan. “We haven’t eaten anything not from a convenience store or a sewer in, like, a week. This is _so much better_ than sewer granola.”

“They were power bars,” Nadiya grumbled, “and the sewer was clean.” She couldn’t complain too much, though; she was already on her second helping, and Kardala was on her fourth.

“Geez, you guys have really been through the wringer, huh?” Addison said sympathetically.

“Little bit,” Remy agreed. “Oh, hey, man, by the way, sorry about knocking you out back at the ‘Berg. I really didn’t mean to. Glad you got out okay.”

“Oh, yeah, no worries,” Addison said, waving a hand. “I couldn’t, uh, couldn’t stop channeling, so it’s probably good you knocked me out like that. Flanagan took care of me, it was all fine. I mean, honestly, she was the one who –” They broke off.

“It’s fine.” Flanagan sighed. “All three of our powers were sometimes a little… wonky, right from the beginning. I mean, with Mary, obviously, it was a totally different story, but when they were all activated together? Not great. That’s why Addison couldn’t stop channeling, and I couldn’t stop… amplifying? Generating? I dunno. Anyways, when you broke the current, it messed me up a little.” She took another bite of the curry and spoke around it. “Just weird… like, I go non-verbal sometimes. Well. More often than I used to,” she corrected.

“Dang. I’m sorry,” Remy said, his face falling.

“It’s okay,” Flanagan said. “You had to. Mary probably would’ve died, or she would’ve finished channeling and shut down all the electronics, and _that_ would’ve been bad. This is, like, the best of all possible worlds, really. You guys are in way worse shape.”

Remy looked at Nadiya and Kardala. “Yeah, okay,” he admitted. “We’re not doing great. And we don’t know _what_ we’re doing.” He absentmindedly rubbed one hand over his still-bandaged wrist.

“You guys done?” Addison collected plates. “I’ll take care of these.”

“I’ll help,” Nadiya said abruptly, standing up. “If that’s okay.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Addison said with a shrug, leading the way into the kitchen. Once they both inside, they turned to Nadiya. “You really wanted to help with the dishes?”

Nadiya wilted slightly. Caught in the act. “I want to know anything you can think of about Mary Sage,” she said. “To help us find her. And –” She stopped. “Yeah. You and Flanagan knew her best, right?”

Addison frowned as they started filling the sink with soapy water. “I guess. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll be telling you much you don’t already know. She’s… pretty closed-off. Sarcastic. Resentful, I guess. Didn’t talk to us much.”

“I know all that,” Nadiya pressed, taking the dish Addison handed her and drying it.

“She thought everyone was out to get her,” Addison said after a moment, hands stilling in the water. “Everyone. I knew the, uh, the bare bones of her backstory. With her parents getting arrested and everything. She thinks everyone’s in on it. She even thought Flanagan and I were, and it only got worse after she got the stimplants. She made a run for it, right afterwards. They tried to, uh, sedate her, but it didn’t work. She stole a skimmer and just… ran.” They resume washing. “None of us could really get through to her at that point. She wouldn’t even listen.”

“Fuck.” Nadiya takes the next dish and dries it methodically. “So, hypothetically speaking… if we came across information that said that there _was_ a giant conspiracy under all this and that everyone _was_ out to get her…”

“No wonder she ran,” Addison finished. “It would be her worst fears come true, I think. It seems like she trusted you guys a bit, but after something like that, I bet she felt like she couldn’t trust anyone.”

“She could’ve trusted me,” Nadiya said. “Us. She could’ve trusted us.”

“I know,” Addison said. “And she probably knows it too, deep down. But if she ran off like that, she wasn’t thinking straight.”

Nadiya thought about Mary Sage’s breakdown in the sewers, her quoting the Bible. Saying _I’m scared_.

Burying her head in Nadiya’s lap.

“It’s not your fault she doesn’t trust you,” Addison said. “Whatever you’re thinking. It wasn’t –”

“I know that,” Nadiya said sharply.

“I’m just saying –”

“Well, don’t.” Nadiya balled up the dish towel and threw it onto the counter. “Don’t _just say_ when you don’t know.” She stalked into the other room, grabbed her bag from where she’d left it on a chair. “Is there anywhere in this house I can get some goddamn privacy?” she snapped.

Flanagan looked over from the table. “There’s a bedroom down that way,” she said, pointing down the hall. “But –”

“Look, I just need a fucking minute to myself, if you don’t _mind_ ,” Nadiya said, and without waiting for a response, walked through the door indicated, closing it behind her a little more loudly than she probably should have.

It was a nice room, she guessed. Homier than Jamie’s entire place seemed – somehow, Addison and Flanagan had found knickknacks to put on the dresser, a few pictures to hang on the wall. The comforter, if a bit dusty, was a clean and only slightly faded blue. Nadiya sat down on it, the mattress creaking under her.

God, that felt good.

Nadiya let her face drop into her hands, fingernails digging into the sides of her head. Slowly, the ringing in her ears started to die down. She let out a breath and straightened up again. She still had a headache, though, so she unzipped her bag, digging around in it for ibuprofen.

Instead, what her hand closed around was a small picture frame.

Nadiya very nearly shoved the frame deeper into her bag, but after a second of hesitation, pulled it out.

She didn’t even know why she’d stuck it in her bag. It wasn’t like it held a bunch of amazing memories.

It wasn’t like she even remembered when her parents were together like that.

Her mother was wearing her hijab in the picture. Her father was wearing his glasses, like he’d just gotten up from reading over a journal article. He probably had, and then gone back to it right after they’d snapped the picture.

 _Don’t get attached, Nadiya,_ she heard her father say. _We’ll be moving on sooner or later. People, places, they come and go. The only thing that isn’t transient is science – and even then, you can’t always rely on it_. Well, he was pretty fucking accurate on that point. Jobs, apartments… people, came and went. Mary Sage, transient, leaving the minute she got freaked out. There was no predicting it, no preparing for it.

It was like quantum mechanics, Nadiya thought. Since quantum mechanics was based on probability, there was intrinsic randomness in everything related to it. The laws of physics themselves were random. A biochemical roll of the dice spiraling towards entropy at every moment.

Remy’s mom, Nadiya thought, was probably full of shit. Bonds like the ones she’d described weren’t random enough for a universe like this. In a world where bonds existed, she wouldn’t be on the run from a cult run by a would-be dictator. She wouldn’t be crying into a coworker’s shoulder because her own fucking mother didn’t bother being around, or even in the same country. She wouldn’t be wondering if her father even knew she was missing.

Fuck both of them. It wasn’t like she cared.

Abruptly annoyed, Nadiya shoved the photo back into her bag and zipped it closed.

“Nadiya?” There was a soft knock at the door. Addison. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nadiya said with a shrug, and the door creaked open, letting Addison in. They looked nervous. “What?”

“I’ve got, uh, an idea of how to find Mary,” they said.

Instantly, Nadiya was razor-focused. “What? How?”

“Well, Remy was explaining the bond thing,” Addison said, “and I thought… maybe that could help. Flanagan and I can mark off some places that seem like Mary’d go, and we can drive around and see if we can feel the pull.” They paused. “You know what I mean by the pull, right?”

“Yeah. I… figured that out. How do we even know she’s around here, though?”

Addison shrugged. “We don’t. We just have to trust, I guess. Trust that she was… drawn to us and to you guys. What else can we do?”

Nadiya clenched her hands into fists. Nothing. There was nothing else they could do. She had to trust – trust Mary Sage, Remy’s mom, Addison and Flanagan. All the transient people who were going to disappear sooner or later.

“Nadiya?”

“Okay,” Nadiya said. “Fine. Okay.” She swallowed hard. “What else can we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna be honest, not sure how I feel about this chapter, but here it IS. Enjoy.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya takes a risk. Mary Sage reaches out. Kardala makes a connection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That is RIGHT cha' girl is back and things are getting gay

“Anything?” Nadiya squinted at the map marked with black X’s. Who even used physical maps anymore?

Addison shook their head, resting their wrists on the top of the steering wheel. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“Me neither,” Flanagan said from the backseat. “Try the next one.”

Nadiya let out a sharp hiss from between her teeth, making another slash across the map at their intersection. “We’ve already been to _seven places_.” She ran the end of the pen along her teeth, making a ticking sound. “Where else she could be?”

“We have a few more places to check out,” Addison reassured her. “Don’t worry, we’ll, uh, we’ll find her, Nad.”

“Don’t call me that,” Nadiya muttered.

Addison put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space, checked their mirrors even though there was no one else on the street, and headed off in a new direction. Nadiya groaned to herself. They hadn’t even left until almost one (all three of them had slept like the dead, even with Kardala taking the couch, Nadiya curled into a chair, and Remy sprawled on the carpet). It had been four hours so far of driving around, listening to Addison alternately whistle and talk about their pet rabbit, and not finding Mary Sage, and Nadiya was fed up.

Not that she was thinking about quitting. They were going to find Mary Sage if they had to search all day and into tomorrow. That wasn’t a question. She just wished it was happening faster.

Suddenly, Addison’s whistling cut off. “Holy shit.”

Flanagan leaned forward. “You felt it too?”

“Yeah, yeah –” Addison jerked the steering wheel, pulling onto a side street. “This way?”

“I think so. Ouch, Kardala, move.”

“There is not room to move,” Kardala complained.

“Left! Left there,” Flanagan said, pointing.

Addison did as she said. “Should be straight ahead,” they muttered.

“Shit –” Flanagan doubled over. “Addison, I –”

Kardala pulled her back before she collapsed on the gear shift. “What’s wrong?”

“Powers,” Flanagan gasped, and then shook her head, eyes clenched shut.

“Do you need me to pull over?” Addison asked over their shoulder.

Flanagan shook her head and motioned for them to keep going. After a minute, Addison slowed and parked on the street. “That figures,” they said quietly, and pointed about fifty feet away to an old-looking elementary school playground.

“That’s where she is?” Remy said.

“Must be. It makes sense. She likes hiding, or high places, or both,” Addison said. “This place has been abandoned since the nineties, no one ever bothered to do anything with the building. Or the playground, I guess.”

“She really likes abandoned places,” Remy observed.

Addison sighed. “Yeah. Listen, she probably won’t want to see me or Flanagan. One of you should go.”

“Remy? Kardala?” Nadiya asked.

Kardala shook her head. Flanagan had taken hold of her hand and was holding it tightly. “I do not think I am who Mary Sage needs.”

“Not me either,” Remy said. “I… she probably doesn’t trust me a bunch right now. You’re the best shot, Nad. She trusts you most.”

“What? No she doesn’t.” Nadiya looked skeptically from Kardala to Remy, who both nodded. “Fine,” she said, tossing the map to Addison. “Fine, fine, I’ll go.” She wrenched the car door open, got out, and slammed it closed again.

What if Mary Sage didn’t want to see her? What if she didn’t want to come back? What if she tried to kill Nadiya, like she had in Halleluland?

Nadiya set her shoulders. This was Mary Sage she was talking about. It would be fine. Probably. She walked over to the playground, climbed up the rubber steps. “Gospel Girl?” she tried, trying to stay firmly in _what the fuck, man_ , and not edge into _where are you please come out_. No response. “Space Cadet?” She sighed. “Mary Sage?”

“Mary’s not here.”

Nadiya blinked, her mouth open. It felt, quite suddenly, as if she’d gotten all the air knocked out of her at the sound of Mary’s voice. She felt kind of like bursting into tears. Again.

She shook herself. No time to have a breakdown. This was about Mary Sage. She climbed another stair, then another, towards the turreted tower leading to an orange, spiraling slide.

“You sure?” Nadiya said, and there she was.

Mary Sage was curled up against the wall, holding her knees to her chest, her chin resting on them. “Yeah. Mary’s not here,” she repeated. “She’s… somewhere else.”

“Hey.” Nadiya sat down against the other wall, making the small, circular space very cramped. “Um… can she come back?”

“Maybe.” Mary Sage let out a shuddering sigh. “How’d you find me?”

“Drove around until the Suburbanites’ powers activated. Don’t know what we would’ve done if you hadn’t been nearby. How’d you get here from Vegas?”

“Hitchhiked.” Mary’s hair looked almost as matted and wild as it had in Halleluland, like she’d been tying it into knots. “Somebody… picked me up. Then another somebody. I dunno. I knew the… what’d you call ‘em? Suburbanites were around here. Addison and Flanagan. I could feel…”

“The bond,” Nadiya filled in. “Right?”

“Yeah.” Mary Sage made a tired gesture. “Didn’t wanna get too close, though.”

“We took a party bus,” Nadiya said. “It was cool, I guess.”

A smile flickered across Mary Sage’s face. “Sounds like fun.”

“It was a bit much for me,” Nadiya admitted. “Lots of gay people, though.”

“I woulda fit right in.” Mary Sage closed her unfocused eyes. “Sorry about… runnin’ off. I didn’t… couldn’t…”

“Yeah, that was kind of a dick move,” Nadiya said. But then she didn’t get a response. “Mary?”

“‘I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death,’” Mary Sage said. [Psalm 22:15-16 English Standard Version] And then she uncurled and crawled the foot or so across the space to Nadiya and wrapped her arms around her. “Thanks for comin’ for me, Nad,” she said, her voice muffled.

“Yeah… I mean, yeah, of course.” Nadiya ran her fingers uncertainly through Mary’s hair, trying not to tug on the tangles. _What was she supposed to do?_ Irene was the one good at stuff like this, not her. Even Remy was better. Why had they sent her? “Yeah. I – we weren’t just going to leave you. Not look for you.”

“I know. And I know y’all aren’t with _them_ ,” Mary Sage said. “You don’t wanna hurt me. I know. But when Remy said all that shit… I dunno. My brain short-circuited.”

“It happens,” Nadiya said. “I guess. You okay now?”

Mary Sage shrugged and pressed herself closer to Nadiya, her glasses digging uncomfortably into Nadiya’s arm. “Maybe. I miss my folks. They knew what was up. Good people.”

“Mary, there’s something you need to know,” Nadiya said before she could lose her nerve. “Martine… isn’t in jail.”

She felt Mary Sage tense in her arms for a moment, then go limp. “Fuckin’ figures. I’m not surprised at this point. She’s too smart to get locked up.”

“That’s what Addison said,” Nadiya said.

“I bet she has somethin’ to do with my folks, too,” Mary Sage said. “If she had to do with Remy’s. He doin’ okay?”

“I think so?” Nadiya said. “I mean, I guess he’s fine. He kind of freaked out when you disappeared, but other than that…”

Mary Sage sighed. “I gotta apologize to him too. Shitty thing of me to pull. Shitty brain that told me it was a good idea.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Nadiya said, all her frustration and worries and anger – at least all of it directed towards Mary – melting. Because it _wasn’t_ her fault. “You’re back, that’s all that really matters.”

A smile traced over Mary Sage’s face. “Aw, Nad. You miss me?”

Nadiya’s face heated. Her first instinct was to deny it, but then she nodded. “Yeah. A lot,” she admitted. “Let me know next time if you feel like you have to run, okay? We’ll figure it out. I don’t want to l–” She swallowed. “I don’t want you to leave.”

Mary Sage’s smile softened. “No promises, but I’ll do my best.”

Nadiya let out a deep breath. “Okay, feelings time over. Reed Richards has hit her feelings quota for the day. We should get back to the others.”

“’Kay.” Mary Sage stood up, dragging Nadiya with her. “But I don’t wanna see Addison an’ Flanagan.”

Mary Sage leaned on Nadiya as they made their way out of the play structure and back towards the car. Remy was in the midst of getting out. When Remy saw Mary Sage, he lit up and jumped the entire last twenty feet to them, grabbing Mary in a giant hug. “You’re back!”

She laughed a little and shoved him off. “Yeah, I’m back. Sorry about runnin’ off like that.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m just glad you’re okay,” Remy said, grinning from ear to ear. “Nad! Hey, Nad, so Addison and Flanagan said we should probably go find Grace? She can help, she and Jonesy were developing tech, blockers for the bonds. They said Grace took the others – Jonesy, Pridmore, and Abbey – and headed up to San Francisco.” Remy brandished a wad of cash and a piece of paper with an address written on it. “There’s a bus we can take, it leaves at six, goes straight through the night. Walking distance from here, which is good, ‘cause I don’t think the car would fit everybody. Kardala? You coming?”

The other car door opened. “Kardala is coming,” Kardala said, unfolding herself from the small space. She waved, and Addison and Flanagan waved back before pulling away.

“Kardala, whatcha got there?” Remy asked curiously. Nadiya looked, and realized Kardala was holding a small piece of paper.

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at – _little man give that back_ –”

Remy already had it in his hand and was looking at it. “Is this Flanagan’s _phone number?_ ” he said in delight. “Does Flanagan _like you?_ ”

Kardala’s face was turning red as she snatched the paper back from Remy. “It matters not. I am a goddess, and she is mortal,” she proclaimed, but put the paper in her pocket.

Remy was still grinning. “Sure,” he said. “Bus stop’s this way. Kardala, you should, uh… probably turn back into Irene if we’re going to be around other people?”

Kardala heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes, but by the time the sigh was over, she’d morphed into Irene. Nadiya noticed that the first thing Irene did was put a hand in her pocket.

“Bus stop?” Irene said.

“Yeah, just a regular one, though,” Remy said regretfully.

“If it gets us where we need to be,” Irene said.

Mary Sage squinted at her. “You’re Irene?”

“Oh, I guess we… haven’t met,” Irene said. “I’m Irene Baker. It’s nice to meet you, Mary.”

“Nice t’ meetcha as well,” Mary Sage said warily.

“All right… down this street a ways,” Irene said decisively. “It’s a bit of a walk. Everyone all right? Mary?”

“’M okay,” Mary Sage said.

“I have cheese crackers.”

“…Yeah. That’d be good.”

Irene grabbed a few packets of cheese crackers out of the side pouch of her bag and handed them over. “Onward and upward.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya gets a fright. Remy spills a secret. Mary Sage gets some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> w e l c o m e to NPC hell once again
> 
> jk I love Jonesy with all my heart and soul and we finally get to meet her and the other three nice NPCs I'm using and I'm happy

To Nadiya’s shock, the bus ride went off without a hitch. Mary Sage nodded off on her shoulder fifteen minutes in, and she nodded off against Mary Sage’s head about thirty minutes after that, though she didn’t stay asleep for very long. Irene and Remy played word and number games for at least two hours of the trip, Remy put his feet up on the window and got yelled at by another passenger, and Irene gave the offending passenger the most chilling look Nadiya had ever seen, her eyes glowing blue-white with godly power.

God, she was really getting attached to these dorks, wasn’t she?

“Okay, should be pretty close,” Remy said, squinting at the paper he got from Addison under the dying light of Nadiya’s keychain penlight. The bus had pulled away, leaving them at the side of the road. Nadiya had always thought San Francisco would be bustling at any time of the night, like New York City, but this part of it was silent as the grave. “Couple streets over, maybe? Damn, it’s dark.”

“Mary, what do you – _gah_.” Nadiya swore under her breath. “You like fucking Kabuto or something, your glasses –”

Mary Sage’s glasses looked like they were glowing as they reflected the dim light. She snickered. “More Naruto references, Nad? Really? Can’t branch out and say I look like, uh, whatsherface. The ginger chick in Pokémon.”

“Misty,” Nadiya said reflexively, and then groaned as she realized Remy had been watching the entire exchange and vibrating at an ever-increasing speed.

“You watch Pokémon?” he said, and then, in an even higher voice, “and _Naruto?_ ”

“When I was in middle school, Remy, Jesus –” She staggered as she was suddenly hit with five feet eight inches of rocket-propelled jump boy throwing his arms around her.

“I watched _every episode_ of Naruto!” he said. “I wanted to be a ninja when I grew up, I still have a leaf village headband somewhere at my brother’s house, I –” He broke off, and the sudden silence was deafening.

“You have a brother?” Mary Sage said.

“Um…” Remy let go of Nadiya and turned around to study the street again. “Yeah. I… yeah.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Irene said quietly.

“Not out here. Not that –” He jerked around again, eyes wide enough that Nadiya could see the whites all around the dark irises. “Not that I’m ashamed of him or anything like that, it’s just, I don’t –” He took an audible breath and let it out. “I don’t want him mixed up in this shit.” And then, in a lower voice, “He has a kid. Like… a five-year-old. I don’t… want anything to happen to him. To either of them.” Then, “I already fucked up his life enough.”

“Remy –” Irene started.

“Drop it, okay, ‘Rene?” Remy said. “Should be this way…”

The four of them made their way down the street, then Remy led the way to the right down another few streets, and came to a stop at a tall, pale brick building.

“This should be it,” Remy said. “Do we just… go in, or?”

“Knowing Grace, there’s no way we could,” Irene said doubtfully, examining the entrance. “Look, here. There’s a buzzer panel.” She pressed one of the unlabeled buttons.

There were a few tense minutes of silence before the speaker crackled to life and a mumbled voice said, “Yes?”

“Grace?” Irene asked.

“Who is this?” the voice said, a little sharper now.

“Irene.” Irene glanced at her companions. “Irene Baker. I’m here with Remy, Nadiya, and Mary. From… you know. The Fellowship.”

“Oh,” the voice said in a very different tone. “This is Jonesy. Gracie’s asleep. I’ll buzz you up.”

There was a collective sigh of relief as, with a whir, the door unlocked and Remy pushed it open. Inside, it looked like an apartment building, only it looked like it hadn’t been let in a while. All of the numbers on the doors were tarnished, there were no welcome mats to be seen, and even for two in the morning, it was quiet. Nadiya knew from experience that in a complex like this, there would at least be a couple people up and making a ridiculous amount of noise, but there was nothing.

Remy shrugged and started up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When they got to the top floor, there was only one door, so he knocked.

Almost immediately, it opened to show a tall, slim, middle-aged woman with brown skin and a short, choppy brown haircut. She was wearing what could reasonably called pajamas – blue sweatpants and a t-shirt with “I’m an ~~Engeneer~~ ~~Enginere~~ ~~Engenere~~ I’m good with math” on it. She was also casually holding a baseball bat in one hand, hefted and ready for action, but when she saw who it was, she stepped aside to let them in. “Sorry about the dramatics,” she said, closing the door behind Mary Sage and leaning the bat against the wall. “Can’t be too careful these days. Now. What the hell are you four doing here at three in the morning?”

“It’s a long story,” Nadiya said. “It’d be a pain to tell more than once, so can we save it for the morning? We’ve been on a bus for… eight hours, more or less.”

“Holy shit. Yeah, come on, you can talk to Grace in the morning,” Jonesy said, her eyes widening. “We have a couple free rooms still, this place is enormous.”

“Do you have this whole top floor?” Remy said, looking around the large space.

“It was a penthouse suite,” Jonesy explained, picking her way over various pieces of ill-defined equipment. “Technically, we have the whole building, but the lower floors would be a pain to use, so we’re mostly just up here. I wired all the buzzers up here, though.”

“You’ve set this whole place up in a week?” Irene said in amazement.

“I mean, it’s pretty makeshift, but yeah,” Jonesy said with a shrug. “Here, there’s a couple bedrooms down here. I can’t wait to hear what the hell happened to you all, by the way. Not like you could just hop on a plane like we did.”

“We’ll tell you everything tomorrow,” Irene reassured her, stepping into the first bedroom. “Thank you so much, Jonesy, we really appreciate the hospitality.”

“Hey, no prob,” Jonesy said carelessly.

“Oh, hell yes, a _bed_ ,” Mary Sage said, going into the next bedroom and flinging herself onto the bed. “Good fucking _night_ , everyone.”

Jonesy laughed quietly and closed the door behind her. “It’s good to see Mary doing so well,” she commented. “Last time I saw her… well.”

“Yeah, she’s… okay-ish, mostly, I think,” Nadiya said hesitantly. “Better. I dunno. Anyways. Good night.” Remy nodded as well, giving Jonesy a small smile, and then they both went into the last two open bedrooms in the hallway.

In the dark, Nadiya took off her rumpled bus clothes and changed into pajamas, something she hadn’t done since the Colorado cabin. With a sigh of relief, she crawled under the covers.

And for the first time since all this fuckery had started, Nadiya Jones slept soundly, safe and exhausted, without a single dream.

Except for one she couldn’t quite remember the next day, but definitely involved orange hair and the smell of chlorine and citrus, and left her feeling happier than she’d felt in weeks.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace formulates plans. Remy connects the dots. Jonesy speculates.

Nadiya was stirred from sleep by a soft knock on the door. She made a noise of discomfort and shoved her face back into the pillow. Through her half-awake haze, she could hear a lot of muffled voices, then, suddenly, the door burst open and she heard a loud, “Rise and _shine_ , Reed Richards!”

Nadiya jolted fully awake and upright, nearly colliding with Mary Sage. “Wh- what’s wrong?” she said, danger senses immediately pinging.

“Nothin’, I just wanted ya to wake up,” Mary Sage said, half-collapsing against Nadiya. “Grace said we can’t have breakfast until everyone’s up and you’re the last one.”

“Oh. Geddoff.” Nadiya pushed half-heartedly at Mary Sage, who straightened up with a pout. She considered going right back to sleep, but she was pretty awake now. Right. They were at Grace’s penthouse-apartment-whatever it was in San Francisco. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah, she and Abbey’re makin’ French toast and Remy’s helping,” Mary Sage explained, sitting down on Nadiya’s bed with a slight bounce. “French toast an’ bacon an’ orange juice an’ shit. I think she has grapefruit, too, Jonesy really likes it?”

Nadiya’s stomach rumbled. “I have to shower first,” she said firmly. “I feel gross. And then I’ll be out.”

“Nad…” Mary Sage whined. “Please, we’re _dyin’_ of hunger –”

“Shower!” Nadiya insisted.

“Bathroom’s down the hall by Remy’s room,” Mary Sage, flopping backwards on the bed, managing to avoid Nadiya’s legs. “You suck.”

Nadiya stuck her tongue out at Mary Sage, grabbed her bag, and headed down the hallway.

She really had meant to take a quick in-and-out shower, but the minute she stepped under the hot water, she groaned and closed her eyes. It felt like the grime and dust of the past week was washing away down the drain. She wondered if Mary Sage had showered – judging by the state of her hair (not completely and totally knotted and greasy like it had been the previous night), probably.

Now that she was thinking about Mary, she couldn’t stop. Mary Sage had seemed more… _herself_   just now than she had in days. She’d been grinning widely, her eyes alert and not glazed over, with the spark of mischief that Nadiya recognized from their car chase back before they got to the cabin.

Nadiya wondered uncomfortably how long she’d been paying that much attention to Mary Sage.

Hurriedly, she washed her hair and made sure she got a thorough rinse before shutting the shower off and wrapping her hair in a towel, throwing her pajamas back on since she didn’t have any clean clothes.

She hesitated at the hallway exit, but before she could do anything else, Grace turned around from where she was standing at the counter and smiled. “Nadiya! Good morning! It’s real good to see you.”

“Um, good to see you too, Grace,” Nadiya muttered, sitting down at the table – two tables shoved together, if she wanted to be accurate – with Kardala, Jonesy, and a woman in her early twenties wearing retro aviator glasses who Nadiya identified as Pridmore. Grace winked and turned back to the griddle, where she was flipping what looked to be about fifty pieces of French toast. She had been the head of Humanities, Nadiya recalled; Irene’s boss, a tall, solidly-built nonbinary woman in her early fifties with long, greying brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Whereas most of the rest of them – including Jonesy – were still wearing pajamas, Grace was wearing beige slacks, closed-toe brown lace-up shoes, and a pink flowered long-sleeved button-up shirt under a beige suit jacket, unbuttoned, that matched her slacks. Nadiya couldn’t remember ever wearing anything that nice except for her grad school interviews.

Grace, she decided, was either going to annoy the shit out of her, or was a genuine badass. Or both. Could definitely be both.

“Okay, we got French toast, bacon, grapefruit, orange juice, coffee…” Grace said, clapping her hands together. “Everybody grab a plate and have at it. Creamer’s in the fridge if you want it.”

For the next few minutes, the kitchen (or what was generally being called a kitchen) was complete chaos as everyone scrambled to get themselves their breakfast, but eventually, it settled down, and Nadiya was sitting a bit disbelievingly with seven other people, at an actual table, with actual food.

“There’s plenty, I grabbed groceries from the place next door this morning,” Grace said, stirring sugar into her coffee, “so feel free to have seconds or thirds or however much you want.”

“Thanks, Grace,” Remy said around a mouthful of bacon and a huge grin.

“I’ll help with the dishes after,” Jonesy added, kissing Grace’s cheek as she sat down.

 _Huh_ , Nadiya thought, looking from Grace to Jonesy. _I guess they’re together._ For some reason, she glanced at Mary Sage, who was eating French toast like her life depended on it, and who also winked at Nadiya when their eyes met. Nadiya quickly turned back to her own breakfast.

“So, you wanted to hear about our trip?” Remy said once he’d finished his first cup of coffee and gotten a refill.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Jonesy said. “And then we have some stuff to fill you four in on.”

Remy launched into his version of the events, Kardala and Mary Sage occasionally chiming in with corrections. Pridmore was signing a translation to Abbey. Nadiya mostly let them take care of it, focusing on eating as much French toast and drinking as much coffee as she possibly could. It felt like it did when she’d spent days straight in her lab and she’d finally made a breakthrough. She would go home, sleep like the dead for twelve hours, and order from her favorite Thai restaurant whenever she woke up. Spend the day catching up on the news she hadn’t been paying attention to, watch an episode or two of whatever she’d been watching on Netflix recently, and let whoever’d been texting her she was still alive.

“Wow,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Y’all have been through a lot, huh?”

“You could say that,” Nadiya said, finally setting her mug down. “So, do you know what the fuck is going on? Because we may have some background now, but as far as we know, we’re still being hunted down by either the feds or Martine or both.”

“Well, first of all, you don’t have to worry about that here,” Grace said calmly. “I don’t know if Jamie, Addison, and Flanagan told you, but Jonesy and I – mostly Jonesy – had been working on some tech for blocking the bonds, and this whole place, as well as the surrounding block or so, is basically under a catch-all invisibility cloak. Well,” she corrected herself, “the cloak blocks _artificial_ bonds – the kind Martine’s manufacturing with the stimplants and her modified oxytocin. Regular bonds still work fine. I don’t even know if there _is_ a way to block those. We gave Jamie and Addison and Flanagan some prototypes we made – doesn’t block all artificial bonds, but it should block Martine, the hub.”

“Like a server in a computer network,” Remy said.

Jonesy shot him double finger guns. “Exactly,” she said. “Each team had artificial bonds with the other people on their team _and_ with Martine – which is the main problem.”

“See, I don’t think there’s any way Martine’s given up,” Grace said, the friendly smile dropping off her face, replaced with a serious, business-like look that matched her outfit. “She’s a master manipulator, and I’d be shocked if she didn’t have a plan M, much less a plan B.”

“Here.” Jonesy pushed her chair out, going over to the counter and fiddling with a projector, opening a laptop and connecting them. “I made a PowerPoint.”

Irene leaned forwards eagerly, but Nadiya groaned. “How is it _possible_ that literally every one of you is nerdier than I am?” she complained.

“I’m not,” Mary Sage said.

Nadiya considered that. “You have most of the Bible memorized.”

“That’s not nerdy, it’s _sensible_ ,” Mary Sage said, poking her fork in Nadiya’s direction.

“Focus, people,” Grace said. The room fell silent again as Jonesy’s projection appeared on the wall. “So, it’s clear Martine’s not working on her own. She’s been seen in the Capitol, for heaven’s sake. My best guess is that she sold her tech – the stimplants, mostly – to the government in return for complete amnesty.”

“ _What_.” Nadiya knocked over her empty glass in standing up. “That’s – that’s _my tech_ , she –”

“I’m just telling you what I suspect, Nadiya,” Grace said calmly. “I can see you’re upset, but I’m going to be real honest with you. You not getting a patent for your work is the least of our problems right now. Please sit down.”

Nadiya dropped back into her chair, a burning sensation behind her eyes. She wanted to yell at Grace that she didn’t understand, didn’t get how academia _worked_ , that was her entire PhD, all her research, she couldn’t just start over and pick something else. Martine had all but destroyed her career.

“The biggest problem,” Grace said quietly, “is that the government is almost certainly underestimating Martine. They’ve given her too much leeway; they don’t get the extent of her plans. I think – yes, Remy?”

Remy was raising his hand, and now lowered it awkwardly. “I might be able to help with some of this,” he explained. “I… my mom used to work with Martine. She left me a message, a bunch of info on their work. What she knew about Martine, what she thought Martine’s plans were. That was a while ago, though, I don’t know how helpful it’ll be.”

“Anything is helpful at this point,” Grace said firmly. “Could you go get that for us?”

Remy nodded, jumping up from the table and darting from the room, returning in less than a minute with his laptop, which he opened. “She said something about Martine building an – an army of supersoldiers,” he said, pulling up the documents.

Grace’s mouth thinned, but she nodded. “That would fit with what I suspect,” she said. “Jonesy?”

Jonesy nodded and clicked to a slide showing a photo of Martine talking with two people in suits. “The man on the right there is the Secretary of Defense,” she said grimly. “And the one on the left is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“According to my intel – and my reasoning – Martine’s persuaded the Department of Defense that her stimplant tech –”

“ _My_ stimplant tech,” Nadiya put in, still fuming.

Grace sighed. “Nadiya’s stimplant tech, then. She’s persuaded them that it can be used as a weapon. Every news network I can find is working overtime to fix the PR disaster that was Richard’s broadcast, painting Martine in the best possible light. That’s got to be at the behest of the Department of Defense – honestly, I don’t know how deep this goes, she was at the White House, she may even have the president on her side. However, there’s no way she’s told them about the modifications she’s made. Which means…”

“Holy shit,” Mary Sage whispered. “It means she could have a literal, entire army with those connections. With the bonds.”

“All connected to her,” Grace said with a nod. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s made a few more modifications since the disaster at the ‘Berg. To… make the recipients easier for her to control.”

Abbey, a middle-aged man with greying reddish hair, tapped on the table, then signed something, which Pridmore translated in her strong Scottish accent: “What was her original plan, then? Couldn’ta been this.”

“Again, this is partly speculation on our part,” Grace said, “but partly info we gathered when we were still working for the Fellowship. I don’t think she ever thought Richard’s plan would work. Hers wasn’t a backup, at least not to her; it was the only real plan. She was just using his as a way to execute hers. She wanted to recruit the best and brightest, bind them to her, and… well. Use them however she needed.”

“Well, that leaves me with a lot of questions, but I think there’s only one that comes to mind immediately,” Irene said in her quiet voice.

“What is it, Irene?”

“Why us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am almost certainly going to have plot holes now that I've solidified plot. Do not @ me.
> 
>  
> 
> also I love you all and we're almost there, folks, hang in there, I promise I'm following through! <3


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonesy breaks some rules. Mary Sage learns the truth. Nadiya makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be moving this week, so I figured I'd post this chapter early so I don't forget!
> 
> Also, @voidfishkid on Tumblr drew the best best picture of Mary Sage winking at Nadiya from the previous chapter! Go check it out: http://voidfishkid.tumblr.com/post/176324670455/sometimes-i-remember-that-birdiethebibliophile

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Grace said softly. “Why you?”

In the silence that followed, Jonesy clicked to a new slide. Then another, and another. Each showed a photo of a personnel file.

_Jamie Meadows._

_Addison Parker._

_Flanagan Kirmani._

_Joe Carbinner._

_Grace Perkins._

_Scully Vanderbilt._

_Paul Potts._

All of the members of the Do-Good Fellowship, their secrets and details and ways to manipulate them laid out on a tidy page in Times New Roman.

“I already told you,” Grace said. “She wanted the best and the brightest.”

_Christopher Rembrandt._

“An Olympic athlete she needed to keep close, the son of the people she worked with and who knew what she was up to,” Jonesy paraphrased from the file, leaning over the counter on her forearms. “IT specialist. Ideal for a fighting-type stimplant. Desperate to save his brother’s failing gym.”

Remy looked like he was going to be sick. “Does it say anything about my parents?”

Grace shook her head. “Just that they disappeared right before your Olympic run.”

Remy nodded, tight-lipped, his fingers twitching as they gripped the edge of the table.

_Nadiya Jones._

“The brightest scientist of her age, lonely and desperate for validation in the thankless world of academia,” Jonesy continued. Nadiya shifted uncomfortably in her seat, looking at her hands. “The scientist who developed the original stimplant technology. She couldn’t let you walk free – you could’ve developed an antidote, or patented your tech before she had a chance to get her hands on it.”

“She doesn’t own it,” Nadiya snarled. Grace gave her a pitying look.

_Irene Baker._

“I know you’ve wondered before why you were hired, Irene,” Grace said. “Jonesy?”

“An overlooked professional brimming with untapped power and an ability to connect with others that would bond Martine’s little group together irrevocably,” Jonesy said quietly. “She may not have known about Kardala, but she knew there was something special about you, Irene. Your bonds are off the chart. Trust me – I had to adjust the blockers this morning to account for it.”

Irene’s face was blank. “Right,” she murmured.

Jonesy hesitated, then clicked to the last slide.

_Mary Elizabeth Sage._

Nadiya could feel Mary Sage stiffen beside her.

“Mary, you were the most dangerous of them all,” Grace said. “The one on whom Richard’s plan hinged.” She paused, as if wondering whether she should continue. “The one whose psyche Martine deliberately tampered with. The one who was getting too close with your investigations into parents.”

“What do you mean?” Mary Sage whispered.

“You were right, Mary,” Grace said. “I found this all out after the Fellowship fell… I never would’ve kept it from you. None of us would have.”

“Richard needed you for his broadcast,” Jonesy said. “Everyone has hints of what powers they’ll manifest. They figured out early on what you would be able to do if you were augmented. So… Martine used her influence to get your parents arrested.” She glanced towards the table, then away again. “Just like she presumably made Remy’s disappear.”

Mary Sage let out a small, choked sound like a sob. Without thinking, Nadiya reached out and put an arm around her waist, and Mary Sage leaned into her. She was shaking slightly.

“Martine knew you would do anything for revenge,” Jonesy said, still half-reading off the file displayed on the screen. “She offered you powers to fill that gap, and… there it was.”

“How’re you doing?” Grace asked gently.

“Mary’s okay,” Mary Sage said softly. Nadiya tilted her head to look Mary in the eyes. They weren’t completely clear, but they weren’t glazed, either.

“Good,” Grace said. “Because there’s more.”

“She tried to put a failsafe in your head,” Jonesy said, and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Do you need me to –” Grace started, but Jonesy shook her head.

“Tried?” Mary Sage prompted.

“Tried,” Jonesy repeated, opening her eyes. “From the info Grace and I gathered, she didn’t count on… well, on your already unstable brain chemistry. Instead of making you compliant, the tampering caused your seizures, heightened your depersonalization disorder.”

“This… explains a lot,” Mary Sage said. She took a deep breath and straightened slightly, a determined look on her face. “That was the failsafe, then?”

“More or less.” Jonesy took a breath. “It’s… possible that Martine managed to… code in a way to… stop you, if it came to that.”

“You’re sayin’ it’s possible she can instakill me, then,” Mary Sage said flatly. Nadiya took in a sharp breath. “Well, that just fuckin’ figures, doesn’t it. Ya got a plan?”

“Actually, yes,” Grace said. “Listen. This all may sound… dire. But Martine isn’t perfect. You’ve already thrown her off once. She wasn’t planning on having to go along with Richard’s idea to send the three of you – Irene, Nadiya, and Remy – after you, Mary. Hell, she wasn’t planning on Kardala at all. According to her notes, Irene, it seems like she thought you would just gain power over the weather.” Grace tapped one fingernail, French manicure chipped, against the counter. “What I’m saying is that it isn’t hopeless. A week from tomorrow, according to the news, Martine will be holding a press-conference-cum-gala here in San Francisco.”

“I suspect she’s using the government data bank and archives downtown, which would be a reason she’d be here in San Francisco,” Jonesy puts in.

“In simple terms, I want to infiltrate the party,” Grace said calmly, “and take Martine down by any means possible. Without her, Richard has nothing, and the government will drop the entire thing. They’ll still have the stimplant technology, which, I admit, isn’t great, but they won’t be controlled by Martine. Additionally – and we’ll go into the details of this later – with the help of you, Mary, and you, Remy, we should be able to interrupt the broadcast of the press conference and get our own on there instead, reveal Martine’s plans and completely undermine her credibility. There’s nothing that scares the government more than an inside job. I think we can all agree that’s better than nothing.”

“We have to act quickly,” Jonesy explained, shutting her laptop. “Your story just solidifies that. It’s clear she’s already putting the stimplants into action – look at what happened in Nevada, with the augmented soldier who attacked you. I also can’t keep us hidden forever – we can’t just stay in the building all the time, and someone’s going to figure it out sooner or later, we were on the broadcast. The faster we move, the less likely it is that Martine will figure out our plan.”

“Martine may have Richard and Sylvane with her,” Grace said, starting to sweep plates off the table and pile them in the sink. “Sylvane’s definitely augmented and very dangerous, though I’m sure you all can take him like you did at the ‘Berg. Richard may still be in bad shape. Martine may also have other augmented individuals or soldiers with her, and there’s always the addition of regular police or Secret Service. It’ll be tricky – I’m not denying that.”

“Wait.” Remy looked even sicker than before. “Are you saying we’re gonna kill Martine?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Grace said, and made eye contact with him, holding it for an awkward few seconds before Remy’s eyes dropped. “I need you all to tell me if you’re not in. I know I’m asking a lot. It’ll be dangerous, and I have no way of knowing what the outcome will be, even if we succeed.”

“I’m in,” Mary Sage said instantly. “I wanna make Martine pay, an’ I don’t wanna take the chance of her flippin’ that kill switch, or gettin’ in my head again an’ fucking me up more than I already am.” She paused, and caught a quivering breath. “And I want my parents back,” she added viciously.

“I’m in too,” Pridmore said nervously, then looked to Abbey, who nodded and signed something even Nadiya could recognize as _me too._

“You know I’m with you, Gracie,” Jonesy said.

“I’ll help,” Irene said quietly. “I think… I don’t have a choice. If I want to live with myself.”

“I will too. I guess,” Remy said. “But I don’t like it.” He swallowed. “I don’t like any of it, okay?”

“Nadiya?” Grace said.

Nadiya closed her eyes, trying to think. She hated rushing into things, but it didn’t seem like they had much of a choice. She wanted her life back. She wanted her lab, and she wanted ordinariness, and she wanted her dad to drop by and ask about her research, and she wanted her mom to call on the first of the month like she usually did.

And she wanted to stop running.

She opened her eyes.

“I’m in.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy makes an excuse. Mary Sage enjoys herself. Nadiya lightens up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo it takes a sharp left turn into heavy angst after this chapter, with only one respite, so buckle in and enjoy.
> 
> Also! I've officially finished writing, so I can post more often now! Starting next week, my schedule will be Tuesdays and Fridays until complete. Home stretch now, folks!

“You doing okay?” Nadiya asked.

“Actually… yeah,” Mary Sage said.

They were hanging out in Nadiya’s room. Irene had changed back into Kardala to make sure she got all the information, but Kardala just nodded and said she was going to explore the rest of the building. She left without another word. Remy, too, said he wanted to be alone and went straight into his room.

Mary Sage didn’t.

“I thought for a second I was gonna just… lose it,” Mary Sage said. She was sprawled across the lower half of the bed, her hair splayed out on the comforter like an orange halo. “Like. Fuck. Wild shit, right? All my fuckin’… worst nightmares bein’ real. But then, like, I realized this is pretty much as bad as it can get. Kill trigger in my brain, my parents are in jail when they did nothin’ wrong, we literally have to save the fuckin’ world from a maniac. Nowhere to go but up.” She smiled at the ceiling, a kind of crooked smile that _did_   things to Nadiya. “See, I thought I’d hit that point in Halleluland. Hidin’ out in an abandoned theme park, talkin’ through robot unicorns. It was bad. An’ then… well, all this shit happened. So now? Not that bad. It’s just like… might as well happen. If everything’s goin’ to hell, at least I have a couple friendly dorks on my side.” She paused, then kicked Nadiya’s leg lightly. “And at least one of ‘em’s hot.”

Nadiya immediately started sputtering, and Mary Sage burst out laughing. “I knew that would getcha,” she snickered. “Even though you are. Hot, I mean.”

“Well… thanks?” Nadiya said, still feeling very red.

“Anytime.” Mary Sage kicked her foot out again. “It’s kinda weird, bein’ here. Like, in an actual house, more or less. With a bed, an’ regular meals, an’ Grace half bein’ a mom and half a general or something. We have a whole week where we can just hang around here. I don’t even know what to do, I guess. We’ve just been on the run nonstop, and before that I was in Halleluland. Haven’t been anywhere near normal in fuckin’ ages.”

“Well, do you have anything you _want_   to do?” Nadiya asked.

“Actually… yeah,” Mary Sage said, a smile tugging at her mouth. “A lot of stuff, actually. I wanna bake some chocolate chip cookies. Listen to some music. Maybe play a few card games. I’m great at poker.”

Nadiya laughed. “Of course you are.”

“I don’t cheat, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Mary Sage said, kicking her again. “I’m just good at tellin’ when people are bluffing. You’d be easy. Always got all your thoughts written right out on your face.”

Nadiya’s hand flew up to her face. “Really?”

Mary Sage shrugged, an odd gesture horizontal as she was. “More ‘r less. I can always tell what you’re thinkin’.”

“Irene can too,” Nadiya said. “I can never tell. I can barely tell what people are _feeling_. For that matter, I can barely tell what _I’m_   feeling.”

“I know what I’m feelin’ right now,” Mary Sage said, sitting up, her glasses sliding down her nose. “I’m feelin’ like we should use Jonesy’s projector to watch _The Princess Diaries_   and eat chocolate chips straight from the bag. Skip the cookies, we can do that later.”

“That… actually sounds great,” Nadiya admitted.

“’Course it does. It was my idea.” Mary Sage hopped off the bed and practically kicked the door open. “If anyone wants the living room, we’re usin’ it!” she hollered in the general direction of the other bedrooms.

“It’s not like it’s private,” Nadiya pointed out, following Mary Sage into the kitchen, where she opened the freezer and rummaged around.

“Nah, but it’s always good to give a disclaimer. Just in case.” She turned and winked at Nadiya. “Nice! Chocolate chips! Bet it was Jonesy. She seems like a chocolate chips kinda gal.” Mary Sage shoved the freezer closed. “You know how to work this thing?”

“I’m sure I can figure it out.” Nadiya opened the laptop. “Is it okay to access Netflix, you think?”

“Even if it isn’t, fuck it,” Mary Sage said, a bit incoherently through a mouthful of chocolate chips. “We’ve earned some cheesy movies.”

“Fair enough.” As Nadiya fiddled with the projector, changing the range to clear the picture up, Mary Sage dragged over a couch from the other side of the room.

Well, it was really more of a loveseat. It looked like it could barely fit two people. Especially when Mary Sage flung herself into it, making herself cozy.

“C’mon,” she said, patting the space beside her. “Have some chocolate chips. Watch Anne Hathaway get all prettified. God, I was so gay for her when I was younger. I mean, still am.”

Nadiya obligingly took a handful of chocolate chips. “Me too,” she admitted. “I didn’t see this movie until I was twelve – four years after it came out – but I nearly fell out of my chair when Paolo took the ‘before’ pictures away.”

“Oh, oh, what about Miss Honey from _Matilda_?” Mary Sage asked. “That’s another a’ those gay girl crushes.”

“Are you kidding? I loved Miss Honey,” Nadiya said indignantly. “I watched _Matilda_ , like, every day when I was a kid. Granted, at that point I wanted Miss Honey to be my mom more than I wanted to kiss her, but…” She trailed off, and to fill in the awkward moment, stuffed another handful of chocolate chips into her mouth.

“Your mom not great?” Mary Sage asked carefully.

Nadiya shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t know. I’ve only seen her in person a couple times. She calls, but it’s never for very long, she lives in England…”

“That sucks,” Mary Sage said.

“I’ve gotten used to it, it’s not a big deal,” Nadiya started, but then yelped at a sharp elbow to the ribs. “…Yeah,” she said after a moment. “It sucks.”

Mary Sage leaned her head on Nadiya’s shoulder. “Seems like it. You wanna talk?”

“Nah,” Nadiya said. “Not right now. Let’s just watch Julie Andrews be a badass, yeah?”

“Sounds great, Nad,” Mary Sage said, and Nadiya could hear the smile in her voice. “Sounds real great.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy makes a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, um, I'm real sorry, everyone.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Dissociation/anxiety, past character death, nonconsensual drug use, needles

Remy felt jittery.

Everyone else seemed content to wait. Nadiya had gotten Jonesy to show her the blockers, and now they were in her makeshift lab for hours a day. Mary seemed to be having fun bugging Grace as much as possible. Abbey and Pridmore were teaching Kardala ASL, which she was picking up at, well, lightning speed.

He didn’t get how they could just… be fine with that.

It wasn’t that he begrudged the others whatever they were doing. Nadiya caught him having coffee at the same time she was, and with a couple words of encouragement from him, was immediately telling him everything about what she was working on. He’d never heard her talk that much at once, and maybe he only understood one in five words, but he was still glad she felt like she… trusted him that much?

Mary, too, seemed to be doing way better. Now that they had a plan, she was content, and the stable, protected location seemed to be doing a lot for her. Even Kardala – well, Kardala and Irene – were fine.

_What was wrong with him?_

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Remy lowered his head into his hands, fingers digging into his temples. His heart was pounding. Hands were shaking.

He still didn’t know what had happened to his parents.

None of them seemed to really get it. They didn’t have family mixed up in this. Even Mary at least _knew_ what had happened with her parents. He’d looked it up since Grace’s presentation; Stan and Sally Sage, indicted six years ago, their park shut down, hardly any information on the actual charges.

Now, he decided to Google his brother’s gym, just for fun.

The site was still there – the one he’d set up four years ago and revamped right before his go at American Ninja Warrior. A simple design, as Remy’d never been great at web design, and only knew the basics of HTML.

 _Jump!_ the site read. _The gym for when you’re tired of treadmills and dumbbells. Using trampolines, climbing walls, and other made-for-fun workouts, Jump! is the perfect choice for everyone from kids (check out our Bounce Time classes for ages 3-5) to middle-aged professionals (try one of our balance-based obstacle courses, based on the popular TV show American Ninja Warrior and taught by our very own star Christopher “Remy” Rembrandt)! Sign up for a membership now and get two weeks of classes free!_

There was a phone number under the blurb.

Remy knew that number would go straight to voicemail. The gym had been closed indefinitely for months now. But he also knew that Michael checked the voicemail at least once a week, just in case there was a sudden spike in interest that might let him reopen.

This was probably a bad idea, but Remy’s life had been nothing _but_   bad ideas so far.

The phone rang five times before the voicemail picked it up.

“Hey, Mike,” Remy said. “So, uh… sorry I haven’t called before now. Things have been a bit hectic. I mean, I’m sure you saw me on the broadcast.” He swallowed. “And I’m sure you’re worried.

“I’m okay, really. I’m with some friends. We’re helping each other. Hopefully we can get this all straightened out. Hopefully, uh, I can even figure out what happened to Mom and Dad. Wouldn’t that be something?”

Remy ran his twitching fingers over the edge of the bedspread. “Anyways, I’m going to be doing something kind of dangerous, so I wanted to leave this just in case. I got most of my stuff organized before I left for Florida. Life insurance is no problem – I found a really good company, you should be able to get them to pay up no problem. All the info’s in the yellow folder. My bank account numbers and stuff are in there, too. You’ll be… you’d be pretty surprised to see how organized it is. Took me months to get it that way.

“Anyways, I hope you and Xander are doing well. Give him a big hug from me, okay? Make sure he knows his uncle loves him a whole lot. Assuming this all goes fine, I’ll see you soon. If not… just…” Remy swallowed and closed his eyes, running a hand over his face. “If not, use my money to reopen the gym. There should be enough. Get someone to revamp the site a little. I don’t know why I’m telling you this – you’ll be able to figure it out. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. Love you. Love both of you. Bye.”

Remy jerked the phone from his ear, hanging up before he could talk long enough for the voicemail to cut him off.

Everyone else might be content to wait, but they didn’t have a brother and a nephew to think about. They didn’t have a sinking feeling of dread whenever they thought about their parents. What if Martine was the only one who knew what happened? What if he’d never be able to find out after the gala tomorrow?

What if this was his only chance?

 

Really, it was pretty easy.

He didn’t even have to wait until dark. All he had to do was wait until everyone was busy, snag Jonesy’s prototype portable blocker as well as a few other gadgets she had lying around, and leave.

He’d only get one shot at this.

As he walked down the street, he fiddled with the blocker on his wrist, then pulled the hood on his hoodie up to hide his face, at least a little. He had a plan. Get to the data bank. Get the information he needed. Get out. Simple. It was a struggle to stay focused, though. _One foot in front of the other. Slow, don’t draw attention to yourself. Keep your head down._

As he walked, he thought about his mom.

She’d given him the biggest hug when he said he wanted his name to be Christopher so it was like hers but to keep the nickname Remy so they wouldn’t get mixed up. She helped him do his hair every day for three months when he wore it in short dreads when he was sixteen. She’d come home loaded down with papers to grade but beaming, and when he was little she smelled like chemicals and old paper and cafeteria soup.

As he walked, he thought about his dad.

He was shorter than Remy’s mom, and she would pick him up sometimes and twirl him around the kitchen if it was after dinner and jazz music was playing on the radio. He made waffles on weekends and tuna fish sandwiches for school lunches. He’d talk to Remy and Michael all through dinner about his work and their school, and when Remy was little, his dad read him stories before he fell asleep.

Remy missed them so much. It was like a constant ache, an old bruise that he normally didn’t notice and then he’d bump it against something and it hurt enough to make his eyes water. Every time he remembered that they’d never met Xander, every time he remembered they didn’t get to come to his college graduation, every time he remembered they never saw him climb sheepishly out of the pool on national TV, he felt it pulse with pain.

Ten years.

It had been ten years.

He glanced at the street signs ahead of him and took a left. He didn’t dare get on public transportation. Not now that he was so close.

What if he found them?

Maybe Martine locked them up somewhere. Out of the way, of course, so they wouldn’t interfere. Put them in prison like she did with Mary’s parents, only secretly because they were too close, too knowledgeable. Maybe she threatened them into helping her – they had before.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

His thoughts were flying in all directions, and it was all he could do to stay on his path. He focused on the ground ahead of him, focusing on avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk.

_Step on a crack, break your mother’s back._

It felt like both a second and a hundred years until he was standing at his destination. It was a blank, impersonal building; no identifying marks anywhere.

Remy pulled out his phone – the one he used to contact Mary. Carefully, he pulled up the site he’d found for this building. A collection of archives. This was it.

He walked right in.

Right past the security guards. Right through the metal detectors.

They didn’t even ask him to pull his hood down.

He saw signs directing people to a research room where people could sign up for a card, pull paper files from the limited collections. That wasn’t what he was looking for.

This was his only chance.

 

Really, it was pretty easy.

All he had to do was wait until people were looking the other way. He slipped into the back, where he was sure he wasn’t supposed to be. He walked through corridors – the ones that looked the least frequented. He went down stairs, attached a device he snagged from Jonesy’s lab to any locks he needed to crack. It worked like a charm. He knew where a computer bank would be in a place like this.

It was almost _too_ easy.

He was shaking as he faced the room full of sleek black consoles.

Slowly, he made his way into the back of the room, where a monitor was set up. He slid the flash drive he’d brought into the slot in the computer, then started typing.

He’d never been the best hacker – Mary would probably be better at this – but this was his only chance.

 _Too easy,_ his brain chanted. _Too easy, too easy._

It didn’t matter if it was too easy. He had to know.

He clicked through files and streams of data, fingers twitching on the keys. There was so much information. Too much information. He didn’t have enough time. Where, where, _where –_

There.

_Rembrandt, Christine._

And then, next to it: _Rembrandt, Dante._

It was a data stream. All he had to do was type a key or two and read the results. He could finally know what had happened.

His fingers hit the keys.

He got a glimpse of the screen as there was a soft beep and the door opened behind him.

He hadn’t heard the alarms go off. No alarms had gone off. They knew.

He whirled, ready to fight, to talk his way out of this, whatever he needed to, but it was already too late. These weren’t the security guards from outside. There were two of them, and they were wearing the same outfits as the person they fought in Nevada. One was holding something, and before Remy could blink, they were on him, moving faster than should’ve been possible. They put his wrists in a death grip, and he felt a sharp pain in his neck. In his peripheral vision, he could see the plunger of a syringe being depressed.

 _Sylvane_ , he thought in horror, and then, _It was too easy,_ and then, _Oh, god, I’m going to disappear just like my parents did, Mike and Xander and Nadiya and Irene and everyone won’t know what happened –_

Remy sagged into Sylvane’s grip, his thoughts fading, and in the darkness of the data bank, the word still blinking on the screen threw red light onto his unconscious face:

_[TERMINATED]._


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya finds herself grounded. Mary Sage reaches for the stars. (You know what happens next.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to posting this chapter for months.
> 
> Chapter song: Science & Faith by The Script

Nadiya wasn’t ordinarily one for walks through the park, but when it was Mary Sage who invited her on one, (“I checked with Grace, she says it’s in the radius of the blocker, we’re good”) she found herself physically unable to decline. So now, they were walking along a sidewalk lined with soft green grass and tall trees. Mary Sage had her hands stuffed into the pockets of a hoodie she’d tossed on and she’d put three dandelions in her hair for no apparent reason and God, Nadiya was in trouble.

The trouble being that she was too goddamn gay.

“Nad?”

“Hmm?”

“You like science, right?”

“Uh, duh.” Nadiya rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, dumb question.” Mary Sage hip-checked her. “I was wonderin’. How’d you get through the gates? In Halleluland.”

“Oh.” Nadiya thought back. She, Remy, and Irene standing in front of the worn, pearly gates. The calm, booming voice saying, _Step up and tell me of your faith. In what do you believe?_   Kardala announcing that she loved Jesus and his terrible Bible. “Well, Kardala got onto one hand and talked about Jesus, and I got on the other one and talked about science stuff, I guess.”

“An’ that worked?”

“Yeah, we got in, didn’t we?”

“So you believe in science?”

Nadiya was about to brush off the question, then caught Mary Sage’s eye. She looked genuinely curious. “Well…” she said, forehead wrinkling. “I mean, you could say it like that, yeah. I believe in… logic. I believe there are certain rules the universe follows. And even the things that seem chaotic are still built on theories that we can describe.”

“Give me an example,” Mary Sage said, leaning up against a convenient tree and biting at the knot in one of her bracelets.

“Okay.” Nadiya joined her near the tree. “How about gravity? No matter what, things are going to be pulled towards the largest gravitational force in the area. Unless things get really big or really small, but even then, there are rules.”

Mary Sage studied her, head on one side. “And that’s just how science works?”

“Yeah. There’s an explanation for everything. Even with things like, uh, like quantum mechanics. That’s based on probability, so you can’t predict it, but you still can count on it to _be_ unreliable, if that makes sense.”

“Somethin’ you can stand on,” Mary Sage said softly. “Somethin’ to ground you.”

“If you want to put it like that.” Nadiya dragged the toe of her shoe through the grass. “I always… I never…” She sighed. “You could say there wasn’t much that was _stable_   when I was growing up. My parents got divorced when I was pretty young, and I grew up on military bases with a bunch of private tutors, and we moved every couple years. I like… consistency. No matter how many times you split white light into its components, you always get the same colors. No matter what you break down to get at them, the elements stay the same. Everyone has the same cells that make up their bodies, even if they don’t always work the same way.” Nadiya caught her breath slightly.

“Sounds like what you’re talkin’ about is faith,” Mary Sage said.

Nadiya looked up. “Not really.”

“More in common than you might think.” Mary Sage propped one foot back against the trunk of the tree. “It’s all about counting on the way things work. Except instead of a bunch of rules an’ theories an’ shit, it’s about relationships.” She laughed a little. “Bonds, I guess. Means there’s even more in common than we thought, ‘cause of that bond science stuff Remy’s mom figured out.”

“What do you mean?” Nadiya asked. “About the relationships part.”

Mary Sage hummed, rubbing the cuff of her hoodie sleeve along her lower lip. “It’s all about the relationship between God and His people. Whole Bible’s about that. Hell, all of religion’s about it, even if it isn’t the same god.”

Nadiya had never heard it put that way. Had never thought about it like that.

“When I was little,” Mary Sage continued, “Mom an’ Dad would… tell me stories. Bible stories. But they weren’t boring, or… about, I dunno, followin’ rules an’ stuff. They were about relationships, an’ how you could count on God an’ each other. Not so different.”

“Not so different,” Nadiya said. “I… I guess not.”

“All about what it’s built on.” Mary Sage smiled, and her cheeks dimpled. “Science can’t explain everything, Nad. You gotta trust. You gotta have _faith._ ”

She pushed herself off the tree trunk, and took a step forwards, and she was right in front of Nadiya.

“Tell me, Nadiya Jones,” she said, and her hand came up, fingers clenching into Nadiya’s shirt collar. “In what do you believe?”

“I believe in you,” Nadiya said, and Mary Sage kissed her.

Mary Sage kissed how she looked:  wild, ridiculous, desperate. Her mouth was hungry against Nadiya’s, all tongue and teeth, and holy shit, Nadiya hadn’t kissed anyone in so long. She felt like she’d almost forgotten how. But somehow, her hands found Mary Sage’s mass of red hair and tangled into it – like it needed to be more tangled than it already was. Than it always was.

And Nadiya kissed her back.

She pushed against Mary Sage’s hungry mouth, held her face close. Angled her lips against Mary’s. Mary Sage could kiss her deeper like this, and she did. Her tongue stroked deep into Nadiya’s mouth, and then Nadiya let out a muffled sound as Mary Sage’s hands dropped to her hips, digging in hard.

Mary Sage laughed, that infectious, throaty giggle that made Nadiya’s heart open up like a fucking sunflower. “You didn’t think Space Cadet was a prude, didja? Just ‘cause I know the good book inside and out?”

“What about you,” Nadiya said, voice embarrassingly breathless, “screams prudery, exactly?”

Mary Sage shoved her glasses back up her nose, and then her hands snaked further back, grabbing Nadiya’s ass and pulling their bodies flush. “Not much,” she said, and kissed Nadiya again.

Nadiya felt every millimeter where Mary Sage was pressed against her, from her fingers to her hips to her breasts to her lips. God, Mary Sage’s lips were perfect. Her whole mouth, really. Who would’ve thought all it would take to turn Nadiya into a total sap was locking lips with this ridiculous Christian wiseass who’d tried to kill her when they’d first met? But here they were, and Mary Sage nipped at Nadiya’s lower lip, and Nadiya saw stars.

“You have flowers in your hair,” Nadiya mumbled against Mary Sage’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Mary Sage agreed.

“We’re on the run from a cult.”

“Seems that way.”

“We’re going to infiltrate a government function in like, twenty-four hours.”

“Sure are.”

“Is this –”

Mary Sage shrugged. “Just means now or never, right?” She kissed Nadiya again, open-mouthed, but had to break off because she was giggling again. “Remy’s gonna give me so much shit. I, uh, mighta mentioned I had a crush on you back in Nevada. When we were locked up and freakin’ out and we were bonding.”

“You have a crush on me?”

Mary Sage stared. “Nad, I just kissed the bejeezus outta you. I have the biggest fuckin’ crush on you.”

“Well.” Nadiya cleared her throat. “That’s good to know. I’ll… take it into account.”

“God, you’re such a fuckin’ nerd,” Mary Sage said. “It’s a good thing you’re so cute.”

“You said I was hot the other day.”

“Yeah, that too.” Mary Sage pushed her face against Nadiya’s neck. “You drive me crazy, Nad. I’m crazy about you. You know that, right?”

“Now I do.” Nadiya rested her cheek on Mary Sage’s head. “I… really like you, too.”

Mary Sage gave a long, rusty sigh and wedged herself more firmly into Nadiya’s arms. They stood like that for a moment, swaying slightly, arms around each other.

“We should get back,” Nadiya murmured. “Irene’s going to be worried.”

“Yeah. Don’t want anyone to figure out where we are.” Mary Sage reluctantly pulled back. Then, suddenly, she smiled. Pulling back the sleeve of one of her hoodies, she started picking at the knot to one of her bracelets – a green and orange chevron. After about a minute of work, she managed to get it undone. “Hold out your hand.”

“Which one?”

“Left.”

Nadiya did as directed, and Mary Sage tied the bracelet around her wrist, affixing it with a tight knot. “It’s a friendship bracelet,” she explained as she secured the ends. “Made a ton of ‘em at Bible camp over the years.” She glanced up at Nadiya with a grin. “Only this one means more than friendship, ya dig?”

“I dig.” Nadiya looked at the bracelet, running her fingers along the light bumps of the embroidery floss. “Thanks.”

“It could mean we’re girlfriends now. If you want,” Mary Sage added, as if she’d just thought of that.

Nadiya’s face heated, but she nodded. “I’d… like that.”

Mary Sage’s smile spread over her entire face, her muddy eyes crinkling behind her glasses, and she leaned up to kiss the corner of Nadiya’s mouth. “Good,” she said. “’Cause I would too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be back to my regularly scheduled Angst on Tuesday, but this had to come first. <3


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace takes a chance. Mary Sage stands her ground. Nadiya lets herself care.

Nadiya had about seven minutes of pure happiness – that is, the time it took her and Mary Sage to walk back to Grace’s headquarters. Seven minutes of her fingers laced with Mary Sage’s, seven minutes of Mary Sage’s head on her shoulder, seven minutes of smiling more than she could ever remember smiling.

And then they walked in the door.

“Oh, God, he’s not with you.” Jonesy’s face was drawn and tense. “Fuck. _Fuck._ I thought maybe… fuck.”

Mary Sage’s hand clenched tight against Nadiya’s. “What’s wrong?”

“Remy’s gone,” Grace said grimly. She was standing at the kitchen tables and had papers spread over both. “Jonesy’s prototype portable blocker is gone. So is a codecracker she had on-hand.”

“How long has he been gone?” Nadiya asked, happiness draining from her faster than coffee from a shattered mug.

“No one’s seen him since early afternoon,” Grace said, “so probably hours. There’s not… he isn’t…”

“He wouldn’t have done anything stupid,” Nadiya said. “He’s not – Remy’s not an idiot.”

“He’s been upset, though,” Irene said, walking into the room. Her hair looked staticky, like Mary Sage’s sometimes did when her powers activated. “I should’ve paid more attention.”

“What do you think he _did?_ ” Nadiya asked, dropping Mary Sage’s hand and moving to the table with Grace.

“We don’t know,” Grace said honestly. “But I think we have to assume the worst.”

Nadiya’s stomach dropped. “You think Remy’s dead?” she said, and it meant to come out steady, but instead it was a croak.

“That or caught,” Grace said, her voice low, and for the first time, her head fell forward, like it was too heavy to hold up anymore. She sounded defeated. “I don’t know what would be worst, honestly. It’s – it’s a possibility he’s told them – it’s not out of the question that Martine knows exactly what our plan is. It’s also possible that… yes, he’s dead.”

“Oh, God,” Mary Sage whispered.

“What do we do?” Nadiya asked.

“Go ahead with the plan,” Jonesy said, voice shaking. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t change things now. We won’t get another chance. But this makes it… a lot more risky. Mary, you’ll be the only one who can disable the news stream long enough for me to replace it. Nadiya, that’s one less fighter to help you out.”

“And if it’s not enough?” Nadiya said. “Or if they know everything about our plans?”

“Martine’s ruthless,” Grace said quietly, her head still down, eyes closed. “We all know that. It was dangerous before. Now I’m not going to say it won’t be a suicide mission.”

“That’s not saying it _will_   be,” Irene put in firmly. “We can still do this. We have a responsibility to. Besides, if –” She faltered, then continued. “If Remy’s still alive, he needs us,” she finished. “We can’t just leave him. He’s our friend.”

“For Remy, then,” Mary Sage said, and she took a shuddering breath. “As well as for everything else.”

“We still have twenty-four hours, more or less,” Grace said, lifting her head and opening dry eyes. “We’ll make a few modifications to the plan. Make sure we have all the supplies we need. We’re still going through with this.”

“We helped it happen in the first place,” Irene added. “The least we can do is help undo the damage.” She winced, as if in pain, and something about her hurt Nadiya’s eyes for a moment before resolving. “Let me know if anyone hears anything from Remy. I’m going to go update Pridmore and Abbey.”

Grace nodded. “Mary? Nadiya? I know this is a lot to take in. Do you need anything?”

“Just Remy back,” Mary Sage said. “Which is nothin’ you can give me.”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “I didn’t… I…” She shook her head. “Let me know.”

“Nadiya?” Jonesy said gently. “I need your help to see if I can assemble another blocker. Remy took the last one. I don’t know if I can, but can’t hurt to try.”

Nadiya nodded numbly. “See you later, Mary Sage,” she heard herself saying as she followed Jonesy.

“Yeah,” Mary Sage said. “See ya, Nad.”

 

To say it was the worst hours of Nadiya’s life wasn’t quite right, but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate, either.

She couldn’t concentrate on helping Jonesy. All she could think about was Remy, who’d already been kidnapped once, who was now alone and probably hurting if he was alive at all.

God, he’d just told them the other day that he had a brother.

“You should turn in for the night,” Jonesy said when it started getting dark. “You seem tired.”

Nadiya nodded, taking off her goggles and setting them on the table. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“It’s okay. I get it.” Jonesy sighed. “None of us saw this coming. We figured… well. Too late for that now, right?”

“Night, Jonesy,” Nadiya said, even though she knew she was being rude. She had to get out of there. She had to stop _thinking_   about this.

“Nad?”

Nadiya jerked to a stop. She hadn’t seen Mary Sage until they were less than a foot away. “Yeah?”

“C’mere.” Mary Sage tugged Nadiya into her room, sat her down on the bed. “You okay?”

“No,” Nadiya answered honestly, and to her horror, her breath hitched in her throat. “I can’t stop thinking about Remy. _Fuck_.”

“Me too.” Mary Sage climbed up and arranged them both so they were sitting up against the headboard, backs cushioned by pillows. She wound her fingers into Nadiya’s, her other hand rubbing over the bracelet on Nadiya’s wrist. “It sucks. It sucks _so much_.”

Nadiya’s breath hitched again. “I want him to be okay,” she whispered. “God, Mary, what if he’s not okay?”

“I don’t know,” Mary Sage said, honestly. Then, “You need to cry?”

“Yeah,” Nadiya said, and just like that, the heat that had been building up behind her eyes since they got back overflowed and her shoulders were heaving with sobs. It was like a cruel call-back to her breakdown in the car with Irene on the way to Nevada, but it felt so much more hopeless. It felt as if the tears were being wrenched out of her and flooding into a black hole, a neverending void of despair and panic, because _how could they do this without Remy?_

“It’ll be okay,” Mary Sage said, and she had her arms around Nadiya, holding her close to her chest. “If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. Even if we fuck up and Martine fuckin’ – fuckin’ shoots us all. Doesn’t mean she wins. I wanna beat her as much as anyone, but if we don’t… well. Guess we just gotta trust.”

“Trust who?” Nadiya managed between sobs, trying to land on scornful and ending up with desperate. “God?”

Mary Sage shrugged, and Nadiya could feel it even though she couldn’t see it. “Yeah,” she said simply. “Or, like, the universe. Science. Bonds. Whatever holds everything together.”

“Everything falls apart,” Nadiya whispered.

“Maybe,” Mary Sage said, and she pulled Nadiya even closer, like she could fuse them together. “Nothing’s ever lost, though. Conservation of matter an’ energy or whatever, right? I remember _some_   things from high school chem.”

Nadiya couldn’t help a wet laugh at that. “So you’re saying that even if we lose, we win?”

“If you wanna put it that way.”

Nadiya closed her eyes, hands clutching Mary’s forearms where they were wrapped around her. “Fuck Martine. Fuck Richard. Fuck Remy for leaving. Fuck everything about this.”

Mary Sage kissed the top of Nadiya’s head. “It’ll be okay,” she said quietly. “‘God works all things for good for those who trust in him.’”

“Mary Sage?”

“Yeah?”

“You… pray and stuff, right?”

“Yeah. All the time.”

“You know I don’t believe in that shit.” Nadiya let out a shaky breath. “But could you just, like… say a prayer or something?”

“For sure,” Mary Sage said. Then she closed her eyes and let out a slow sigh. “Heavenly Father. We’re dealin’ with some rough shit right now.” Nadiya giggled a little in spite of herself, and Mary Sage poked her in the ribs. “We’re scared,” Mary Sage went on, eyes still closed. “I know I am, and I bet Nad’s fuckin’ terrified. Even Grace and Jonesy. Please watch over us as we follow through with this wack-ass plan. Please be with Remy, wherever he is. Bring comfort to our hearts an’ courage to our souls. We’re doin’ your work, Lord, I promise. Martine’s hurtin’ people, and she’s messin’ with stuff she shouldn’t be messin’ with, and we’re tryin’ to put it right. Help us put it right.” She nudged Nadiya. “You got anything you wanna add?”

“You pretty much said it all.”

“Okay. In your Name we pray, then. Amen.”

“Amen,” Nadiya echoed. She felt wrung out, exhausted. She felt scared, as Mary Sage had said, and angry, and she was shaking from crying so hard.

But she also, somehow, felt at peace.

She wondered if that was how her mom felt when she prayed.

“Thanks,” Nadiya said.

“You wanna sleep here tonight?”

“Yeah,” Nadiya said. “I don’t want to…” She trailed off.

“Be alone?” Mary Sage suggested. “Yeah, I don’t either.” She sighed. “We’ll be okay, Nad. ‘At dusk weeping comes for the night; but rejoicing comes in the morning.’ It’s not the end. I gotta believe that it won’t be.”

“‘The center cannot hold,’” Nadiya quoted back.

“‘In this world you have found sorrow; but I have overcome the world,’” Mary Sage countered.

Nadiya gave a final, shaky laugh. “Do you have a biblical comeback for everything I could say?”

“‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself,’” Mary Sage said in reply. “You willing to trust everything’s gonna be okay?”

“Even if everything goes to shit, you mean?”

“Yeah, even then.”

“Okay,” Nadiya said, and it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, dissertation defense included.

“That’s my girl,” Mary Sage said. And then, more softly, “I believe in you too, Nad. An’ I believe in Remy an’ Irene an’ Kardala an’ everyone. We’ll be okay, Nad. We’ll be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there were so many quotes this chapter, I thought I'd compile them here:
> 
> First quote by Mary Sage is Romans 8:28  
> Second quote by Mary Sage is Psalm 30:6  
> Nadiya's quote is from “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats  
> Third quote by Mary Sage is John 16:33  
> Fourth quote by Mary Sage is Matthew 6:34


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nadiya makes a suggestion. Mary Sage likes the sound of it. Grace provides a way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter before the finale. We're here, folks.

Nadiya woke up slowly, curled tightly around Mary Sage.

 _Today’s the day_ , she thought vaguely, and decided she didn’t really have to be awake yet. If she could, she would stay here forever, arms wrapped around her girlfriend, not having to think about anything except what they were going to have for breakfast and whether she should make coffee at home or pick it up on the way to work.

That’s what she wanted, she realized. She wanted a regular life with her job back, and with a small but cozy apartment, and waking up with Mary Sage again and again and again.

“You awake, Nad?”

“Yeah.” Nadiya buried her face in Mary Sage’s hair and breathed in her soft, Florida-reminiscent scent. “Wish I wasn’t.”

“How ya doin’?”

“Not great,” Nadiya admitted. “I wish we didn’t have to do this.”

“Me too.” Mary Sage twisted her head back so she could give Nadiya a sleepy kiss. “How long d’you think we can stay in bed before Grace comes in an’ yells at us?”

“Not long enough.” Nadiya knew she wouldn’t have the courage to say it later – or the time, probably. “Mary Sage?”

“Mmhmm?” Mary Sage turned around fully, blinking soft, sleepy eyes at Nadiya.

“If we… survive tonight,” Nadiya said, “I – God. I know we’re girlfriends now. But I _really_   like you. And I don’t want to… not do this.” She gestured between them.

“I mean, same,” Mary Sage said. “What’re you sayin’?”

“I don’t know what plans you have, but I was thinking… half-thinking… maybe we could live together,” Nadiya said, in a voice so quiet Mary Sage wouldn’t have been able to hear it if they weren’t so close.

Mary Sage was silent for a long moment, just long enough for Nadiya to start thinking this was a bad idea, for her to think about panicking, but then she smiled a little. “Don’t have any plans,” she said. “Never did, really. I worked with my parents on their shit until they got arrested, and then – well, you know since then. Tryin’ to get them free an’ the Fellowship an’ all. I think… I’d really like that, Nad.”

“Yeah?” Nadiya nudged her nose against Mary Sage’s, making eye contact with more difficulty than she usually did – usually Mary Sage had her glasses on, and that made it easier. “We could… find an apartment, and I could see if I can rebuild my lab at all. It wouldn’t be very big. Unless Dad helps out, I’m pretty broke.”

“Bet I’m broker,” Mary Sage said, and giggled. “Hell, Nad, I don’t care if I’m sleepin’ in a closet as long as I’m with you. Maybe I can even get a real adult job.”

“Wouldn’t that be something.” Nadiya took a deep breath and smiled. “And we’ll get your parents out of jail.”

“They’d like you,” Mary Sage said, and rested her forehead against Nadiya’s shoulder. “They were always tellin’ me to find somebody nice, they didn’t think it was good for me to stay with them forever. Don’t think any of this was what they meant, but…”

“It works anyways.”

“Let’s plan on that,” Mary Sage said. “Let’s count on winning. Let’s say we’re gonna wake up again tomorrow morning, an’ this whole shitshow’ll be over. Okay?”

“Okay,” Nadiya said.

And as they both drifted back to sleep, Nadiya could feel their heartbeats – predictable as the sunrise peeking in through the curtains, comforting as a daily cup of coffee.

 

It seemed like no time at all until Grace was handing out supplies and shooing them into their respective rooms. “The fake IDs should get us in,” she said. “They don’t need to do anything more than that. Avoid anyone familiar or in uniform until the ball’s rolling. We can’t do anything with the cameras until we’re ready to cut into the feed. The IDs and everything else you need should be in here.”

Earlier in the week, Grace had prepared disguises for them, with their input. Or rather, they were what she called disguises – she claimed it was going to be a fancy event, so they’d need to fit in. Nadiya’d gone with a suit, as she had a feeling it’d be easier to fight in, and there was no way she wasn’t going to be fighting. Simple enough: dress pants, an ivory shirt, and a dark vest with a tie. It was probably all going to be ruined anyways – Grace said not to worry about the cost, so Nadiya didn’t.

She’d requested one other thing, though.

Awkwardly, watching a how-to video on YouTube as she stood in front of a mirror, she wound the purple paisley scarf around her head, pushing bobby pins into the sides to hold it in place.

Propped against the mirror, her parents stared at her from behind cheap glass. She wasn’t a carbon copy of either of them. She needed people, unlike her dad. She wanted to _stay_   with people, unlike her mom.

She was Nadiya Jones, and she was wearing a hijab because she wanted to, and she had a girlfriend, and she was going to fucking kill Martine.

“Nad?” There was a light tap on the door.

Nadiya turned around, and standing in the doorway, a grin on her face, was Mary Sage. She was wearing an asparagus-green, knee-length dress over short brown leggings. She was also wearing sandals and a knitted beige cardigan, the sleeve of which she was tugging on. Her hair was no less wild and orange, her eyes no less muddy behind her round coke-bottle glasses, her freckles no less prominent, her nose no less snub and upturned, but Nadiya felt something lurch inside of her at the sight of Mary Sage. Her girlfriend.

“You look really good,” Mary Sage said.

Nadiya flushed. “You do too.”

“All fancy.” Mary Sage walked up to her and ran her fingers over the edge of Nadiya’s hijab absently, and then again, with more intention. “This is new.”

“I wanted to try something different,” Nadiya said. “Haven’t see you in a skirt before.”

“I like wearing them, but they’re not great for bein’ on the run,” Mary Sage said with a shrug. “Think we look enough like rich people?”

“I hope so.” Nadiya fiddled with the bracelet around her wrist. She hadn’t been willing to take it off, even if it did look unprofessional. It was too important. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Mary Sage tugged a little at Nadiya’s tie – Nadiya wasn’t sure whether her intention was to straighten it or set it askew – and then grabbed Nadiya’s hand. “Let’s fuck up the feds.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene acts fidgety. Nadiya panics. Martine broadcasts again.
> 
> TW for a mild panic attack in this chapter.

Jonesy slammed the trunk closed. “That’s the last of it. You good, Gracie?”

Grace nodded. “If everything goes well, we can stay in a hotel until we find another option,” she said, “or we can come back here and set everything up again. If not, well, we won’t need to worry about it. Everyone in.”

On that cheery note, Nadiya glanced at Mary, and they and Irene got into the backseat, with Pridmore and Abbey in the middle and Grace and Jonesy in the front. Mary Sage grabbed Nadiya’s hand and held it in her lap, staring out the window.

They always ended up in some sort of vehicle, it seemed.

Irene was strangely silent. Nadiya nudged her with a knee. “How’re you feeling?”

Irene jumped slightly, looking over, and Nadiya blinked. Looking at Irene was causing that same painful feeling from before, her hair slightly staticky, mild brown eyes too sharp. Looking at her felt like the second before an explosion that never came.

“I am fine,” Irene said. “All fine. Just… anxious.”

“Aren’t we all,” Nadiya said uncertainly.

The car ride was quiet, the seven of them too on edge for anything else. It wasn’t far; Jonesy, in a fit of unprecedented parallel parking technique, managed to wedge the minivan-sized car into a tiny space. “Everyone out,” Grace said. “Don’t forget the plan. We get one shot at this. We’re outside of the blocker area now, so if they’re looking for us, they’ll find us. Fast.”

The gala – the press conference – was at a fancy hotel a few blocks from where they parked. The walkways were lit up with fairy lights, and around them, people in thousand-dollar suits and designer dresses and reporters with nametags were heading in the main entrance.

“Can you feel the signals yet, Mary?” Grace asked in a low voice.

Mary Sage’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “Just about. Gotta get inside.”

Grace nodded, and Jonesy took her arm as they led the way inside, flashing their badges at the entry, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who might immediately recognize them.

“You think they saw the broadcast?” Nadiya murmured as they did the same.

“Who, these bozos?” Mary Sage said. “Probably. But don’t worry. People’re unlikely to recognize shit if they aren’t looking for it – out of context, y’know. There’s no reason anyone would think to wonder if we’re the same people.”

Nadiya nodded nervously and followed Grace and Jonesy inside with Mary Sage.

The event was taking place in the main ballroom, according to all the signs. Nadiya was uncomfortably reminded of numerous department holiday parties in which she enjoyed the free food and avoided talking to anyone who wanted to talk about something other than their research. They walked past concierges and wedding groups and the occasional security officer (Nadiya made sure to take note of each of them). And then they were in the room.

Nadiya hadn’t been sure whether she’d recognize Martine, given her fairly limited interactions with her, but she shouldn’t have worried. Her eyes snapped to Martine immediately.

Martine wasn’t wearing the uniform of the Fellowship, of course – she was wearing a tidy, professional-looking black suit with a skirt and jacket, and her long brown hair was down and wavy. She was speaking with an older man Nadiya didn’t recognize – but then, she didn’t recognize most of the people here. She could feel her pulse already start to race, and her hand tightened slightly in Mary Sage’s, until Mary Sage hissed, and she let go with a muttered apology.

“Oh, God,” Mary Sage said.

“I know,” Nadiya said, eyes fixed on the woman who ruined her career. “I see her. I –”

“No, Nad,” Mary Sage whispered, cutting her off. “ _Remy_.” And she pointed.

Nadiya looked, and thought for a second that she was still asleep, because there was no way this was real.

Remy was standing a little ways behind Martine, alongside a man with silver-slick hair Nadiya recognized as Sylvane, partly because he had dual knives strapped to his hips. He was wearing a uniform similar to the one the person they fought in Nevada had worn, and even from a distance, Nadiya could tell there was something wrong. Remy never stood that still – he was always moving in some way, fidgeting or tapping his fingers or shifting from foot to foot. He always had a smile on his face, and his eyes were warm. He had a face she could read, and she hadn’t appreciated until just now how much of a relief that was.

This Remy, as his head swiveled to survey the room and then locked back on Martine, had a blank, glazed expression on his face, and was standing stick-straight. Somehow, the rigid posture made him look shorter than usual.

His gaze raked over them, and Nadiya’s eyes locked directly with his. She froze, partly in discomfort and partly in fear, but his expression didn’t change in any way. He didn’t seem to recognize her at all.

She didn’t know if that was better or worse.

“Oh, God,” Mary Sage said again. “What did she _do_ to him?”

“I don’t know,” Nadiya said numbly. “Has Grace seen? Irene? Any of the others? We can’t go through with the plan, not with him there –”

“They probably have,” Mary Sage said. “Or if they haven’t, they will soon. We gotta stick to the plan. Get him out, or – or whatever on the way. Nad? You okay?”

Nadiya’s thoughts were spinning in a vertigo-inducing whirl. Part of her was overjoyed that here was _proof_   that Remy wasn’t dead, but whatever he was, it almost didn’t look alive. That wasn’t _Remy_. It wasn’t her friend.

(When had she started thinking of Remy as her friend?)

“Nad, I gotta go, I gotta start hackin’ into the cameras. You gonna be good?” Mary Sage asked urgently. “As soon as we get it up, I’ll be back an’ help with everything else. Promise.”

Nadiya gave her head a shake, trying to dispel the panicked spiral building. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Go.”

Mary Sage nodded, still looking worried, and headed off to where Nadiya could see Jonesy lingering in a doorway. Nadiya glanced around the room. It looked like everyone was where they were supposed to be. Pridmore and Abbey were stationed near the security at the door. Irene and Grace were detached, mingling with the crowd, staying inconspicuous. All they had to do was wait, now.

It didn’t take very long.

“Welcome, press and partiers. We’ll get back to the festivities in a few moments, but before that, the reason you all have been invited here. Dr. Simmons?” A smiling man motioned for Martine to come up to the podium as the room quieted down. A TV crew moved in, focusing on the front.

Nadiya had the slightly startling realization that she hadn’t known Martine’s last name up until this point, or that she had a doctorate, although that made sense, considering her background.

Everyone clapped as Martine stepped forwards, and she smiled with that smug edge that Nadiya recognized from the Fellowship. The look that made her cream Martine with a cinderblock fist her first minute with the stimplants.

God, she was going to fucking kill her.

“Thank you all so much for gathering here tonight,” Martine said, gazing around the room. Behind her, double screens projected the recording (LIVE from SAN FRANCISCO, the ticker tape declared). “I’m sure many of you recognize me from an unfortunate national incident not long ago.” She laughed, and the room laughed with her. Nadiya scowled at them.

“Now, as I’m sure you’ve heard, though the broadcast was a dramatized stunt, my goals are very real,” Martine continued. “With the help of an elite team of scientists, and assisted by the government, I have succeeded in developing new technology that will change the world as we know it. I call it _stimplants_ , and it enhances natural abilities beyond human limitations. We have already begun implementing this technology at the highest levels of the government – though of course I can’t give you any details, top secret – and after that, it will be released to the public.”

Nadiya felt as though someone had run cold water over her head. This was beyond an army. This was a total takeover.

“Excuse me – Dr. Simmons?” a reporter called out from the crowd, voice incredulous. “Are you going to give us superpowers?”

Martine smiled, and Nadiya heard in that smile, _I… don’t think so, sweetheart. We need to finish this._

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “we are about to make you _gods_.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonesy makes a connection. Martine makes a break for it. Nadiya has a bit of bad luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going up a day early because the new TAZ is a day late! Love you all <3

Nadiya didn’t know what happened first – the flash of fifty cameras going off simultaneously, or the fuzzing static of the screens behind Martine.

And then there was Jonesy.

“Listen, everyone,” Jonesy said urgently, and her voice was louder than Martine’s had been, clearer. Mary Sage’s doing. “Martine is not telling you everything. Don’t trust a word she says.”

Martine turned and stared at the screens. “Someone stop them,” she snapped at the guards standing near her. They shrugged, apparently confused as to how to do so.

“I have information here –” and documents started popping up on the screen near Jonesy’s head “– that show exactly what Martine’s been doing. These stimplants do augment people’s powers, but that’s not all they do. They let her control you. _She will have control not only over the government, but everyone else who has these alterations_.” Jonesy’s voice was tense, earnest. “Don’t you remember the broadcast? As much as she tries to explain it away, she won’t succeed – don’t you all remember how she tried to use one of her own people, Mary Sage, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t _shut off all electronics in the United States?_ ”

The words were having their desired effect. Everywhere in the room, people were murmuring uncertainly, nodding. Reporters had their eyes glued to the screen, jotting down notes, recording the screens.

“That was not an accident,” Jonesy continued grimly. “I have certified proof that she’s been planning a coup – along with her husband, Richard – for years. This is the culmination of that plot. Here’s the proof.”

Suddenly, around the room, phones chimed simultaneously. _Mary_ , Nadiya thought again, as reporters and party-goers alike started pulling out their phones, and the chatter rose to a dull roar.

“What you have just received are copies of the documents I’m talking about. Information from a coworker from years ago. Select files from the Do-Good Fellowship, the supposed charity organization she and her husband were running. Scientific writing detailing what the stimplants do – stolen, by the way, from their original creator. That should be –”

Three gunshots rang out with a crack, silencing the room, and the screens shattered.

Martine was panting heavily as she lowered the gun. “She has to be close,” she snarled, voice still amplified slightly by the nearby microphone. “Come with me. _Find her._ ”

Nadiya pushed through the crowd towards the podium, now near enough to hear as the Secret Service agents glanced at each other and said, “Dr. Simmons, I think these claims at least bear looking into, I –”

“Not you,” Martine bit out.

Simultaneously, Remy and Sylvane grabbed Martine, and between Remy’s kinetic energy and Sylvane’s speed, disappeared out the door in a split second.

Nadiya let out a strangled sound, ignoring the sudden shouts of the Secret Service, the panicked chatter of the party-goers around her. She could see Irene and Grace shoving through the crowd like she was, but she got to the door first, the two of them close behind her.

“Mary –” she gasped, just as Grace said, “Jonesy.”

“We must find them,” Irene said.

“I know where they are,” Grace said. “Blueprints. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , Remy was supposed to be with them, he was supposed to help protect them.”

“Get fucking going, then, and hurry, Martine has a fucking gun and Sylvane has his knives –”

Without another word, Grace took off down the hallway. Nadiya and Irene followed, almost keeping pace with each other. The hallway was oddly deserted, and Nadiya didn’t hear any sounds of Secret Service from behind them – just shouting. _Oh_ , she thought, recalling the other people who presumably had stimplants. There was no way Martine would just have Sylvane and Remy.

She supposed they had won.

But here – running down a dark hallway, lungs burning, vision blurring with memories of the last time Mary Sage and Martine had been in close proximity, this didn’t feel like winning. It felt like what was the fucking _point_   of all of this if any of them got hurt. If any of them didn’t get out of this in one piece.

Just as they got to a side door, Jonesy barreled out of it, running full force into Grace. “We gotta get out,” she gasped. “Gracie, we gotta _go_.”

“But –” Grace started.

“Go,” Nadiya snarled, shoving past them. “Call backup, show the Secret Service the papers, whatever it takes, you’re the ones who can follow through with this.”

Grace gave one quick nod, then she and Jonesy took off back the way they came.

Sylvane skidded to a stop right in front of the door, knives raised, but Irene stepped into the room, transforming to Kardala between one breath and the next, letting out something like a roar as she slammed into him, knocking him back into the room. Nadiya stepped into the room as well as soon as the doorway was clear, and she saw –

– Mary Sage.

Mary Sage, with a trickle of blood dripping from her nose, glaring defiantly at Martine, who had her gun out.

“Mary!” Nadiya yelled, starting forwards, but was immediately blocked.

By Remy.

Remy, blank-faced and dead-eyed, body practically sparking with kinetic energy, arms up, fists clenched easily.

“Remy,” Nadiya said, voice shaking. “Let me by. I have to get to Mary Sage.”

There was no response.

“Remy,” Nadiya said again, and she felt her energy drain as her arm formed into a long, razor-sharp sword. “Don’t make me do this. Please.”

“Kill her,” Martine said, and Remy attacked.

Nadiya swore viciously as his first blow connected with her shoulder, kinetic energy releasing and knocking her back a few feet, but she dodged out of the way of the next one, then blocked a third with the flat of her sword arm. She slashed at him, and he danced out of the way – too smooth, none of the jerky exuberance she’d learned to expect from him.

“Please, Remy,” Nadiya said through gritted teeth, even as she lashed out again with the sword, catching him with a thin scratch across his upper arm. He retaliated with a flat-handed jab to her ribs, knocking the breath out of her for a second. She dared a glance in the direction of Mary Sage and Martine, but oddly, Martine had dropped her gun, and she and Mary Sage were staring at each other intensely.

Nadiya paid for her distraction with another punch, this time to her jaw, sending her head spinning, but she turned on her heel and jabbed her sword into the meat of Remy’s thigh, wincing as she felt it pierce his skin. He didn’t wince at all, however, just moved in closer, heedless of the sharp edges sliding out of his leg. With two quick, efficient blows, he knocked her against the wall, but she shoved herself forward again, sweeping a leg under his to knock him off balance – not that it would work. Remy had years and years of gymnastics training under his belt.

Only he didn’t, because this wasn’t Remy, and he stumbled, and she grabbed his arm and released the energy he’d been building, and suddenly she had him against the wall, tip of her sword arm pressed against his chest, and he was struggling, shoving against her hand. She drew back, intending to stab him somewhere painful but not fatal, but – froze.

It _was_ Remy.

It just wasn’t him controlling his body.

She couldn’t hurt Remy. Not like this.

He was her _friend._

Her eyes met his blank ones as Remy, in one efficient movement, grabbed her sword-arm with both hands, twisted it sharply at the elbow, and drove it through her stomach.

Nadiya’s vision went white.

Nadiya gasped, gagging on a breath she couldn’t quite draw. Her own innards were pulsing hot and wet around her arm, blood soaking her shirt, ivory stained scarlet. Without the energy to keep it up, her arm transformed back to normal, drawn out of her body with a sickening tearing sound, and then the pain hit, and she couldn’t even scream. All she could do was gag again, slightly, and slip to the floor, knees having crumpled beneath her.

Everything seemed hazy.

 _Nadiya? Nadiya – oh, God, oh,_ God _, no –_

Remy’s voice, she thought.

_No! Nadiya!_

Kardala. Or was that Irene?

And then Nadiya heard a sound she could identify immediately.

Because at that moment, Mary Sage started to scream.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it.
> 
> TW for dissociation and unreality (?)/dream sequence

It felt like dissociation.

It felt like a thousand needles pricking her in a thousand places.

It felt like her head in a vice, constricting, constricting.

Mary Sage stared into Martine’s eyes, and she could _feel_ it. She could feel it just as clear as if it were a picture held an inch from her nose. A loose thread Martine was trying to pull, just out of reach in Mary’s brain, and if it was pulled, everything would fall apart.

She could see Kardala fighting Sylvane, cuts littering her forearms, and she could see Nadiya, dueling with Remy.

 _Martine_.

And then she saw Nadiya, impaled on her own sword. Saw her fall.

Saw Remy change. Saw him jerk, his eyes widen, his body start to tremble as he fell to his knees beside Nadiya.

Saw Kardala roar with protest, the sound in tritone stereo and then, in a brain-fuzzing blur, start flickering back and forth _IreneKardalaIreneKardala_ until Mary wasn’t sure which was which as she tossed Sylvane against the wall and ran to Nadiya as well.

And she saw Martine smirk.

Her head filled with static, and she _screamed_.

“You _fucker_ ,” she said, high-pitched and uncontrolled, and she could see her hair starting to float off her shoulders, full of static in a way no wool sweater could cause. “You fucker. _I’m going to kill you_.”

She reached for the bond Martine tried so hard to make, tried so hard to control her with, to make her pliant, suggestible, a tool, and threw herself across it.

And now Martine was screaming.

Mary feels a detached pain in her shoulder, and realizes that Martine had shot her heat vision, trying to disrupt Mary’s concentration.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Mary hissed, mind following the thread of the sickly, warped bond that connected her to Martine. “Not gonna _fuckin’_   work. Nice try.”

“Why won’t you _die?_ ” Martine gasped, staggering a step back, heat vision going wide, drawing a scorched path into the wall.

“Not how Mary works. You tried your damndest, though, didn’tcha? Tossed my folks in jail. Let me think I was alone. Tried to make me kill millions of people. Guess what, though? You made the biggest fuckin’ mistake of your life, here, now. You hurt Remy. You hurt _Nadiya_. And guess what?”

A smile spread across Mary’s face as Martine’s eyes widened in sudden fear. Bonds like that weren’t meant to be strained like this, and failsafes, like bonds, go both ways.

“I live by principles,” Mary breathed. “One of ‘em is ‘ _But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!’_ And, Martine? You fucked that one up _bad_.”

It felt less like a finger on a trigger than starting a feedback loop.

If Mary was the circuit breaker, Martine was the circuit.

Mary felt the second the bond splintered, and the second after, Martine screamed, crumpling to the ground, grabbing her head in both hands, curling into a ball.

“Never again,” Mary panted. “Never again.”

“Mary?” Remy’s voice quavered from behind her.

“What?” she snapped, still shaking from fighting Martine off, hair on end.

“It’s Nadiya,” he whispered, and in his eyes was despair. “She’s dying.”

 

 

We see Kardala’s – Irene’s – hands light up with blue electricity that she presses to Nadiya, trying to keep her heart going, to reconnect the neurons in her brain that are failing. Remy’s sobbing, both of them trying to keep Nadiya alive until paramedics can get there.

\-----

( _Nadiya’s drifting, there’s static in her mind, and this is a surprise, isn’t it? She didn’t think it would be her._

 _She thought for sure it would be Mary Sage, or Remy. They rushed in. They threw themselves forward. They ran off without telling anyone, they let their emotions guide them. Though she supposed that’s what happened to her, didn’t it?_ )

\-----

We see Mary Sage kneel with Irene, with Kardala, and Remy. Her face is pasty white between her freckles. _You can’t die, Nad_ , she whispers. _You can’t, we made plans, remember? You don’t get to fuckin’ leave me._

\-----

( _Nadiya can’t see anything, which should be comforting, but isn’t. It isn’t as much white as it is… nothing. In between. That’s what she is._

_The universe feels so wide._

_The universe feels so small._ )

\-----

 _Please, Nadiya_ , Remy sobs. _I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I had to know about my parents. They were dead, from the very beginning, Martine killed them. I don’t want you to die, too. Please, Nadiya. Please. Stay with us._

\-----

( _There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. That’s what Shakespeare wrote. There were so, so many more things._

_Friends._

_Love._

_Bonds._

_Nadiya doesn’t want to leave. Not like this._ )

\-----

 _Come back to us,_ Mary Sage whispers. _Don’t leave, Nadiya Jones. I’ll be damned if you’re leavin’ without me. Without any of us._

\-----

( _Maybe it isn’t too late._

_It feels like a tug on a thread tied tight inside her. Not where the hole in her stomach is. Where the hole in her heart was._

_The hole that was filled by three people, and one in particular._

_She reaches for that thread and holds tight._ )

\-----

Mary Sage grabs Irene’s hands, Kardala’s hands, and presses them over Nadiya. Then she does the same with Remy’s, and presses her own over theirs.

She closes her eyes.

 _Bonds_ , she whispers. _Martine’s are broken. Ours aren’t._

They pull.

\-----

( _Hold on, don’t let me go, don’t let me go, please, I need you, I need all of you)_

\-----

There’s a feeling of static in the air again, an electric feeling like licking a battery, a combination of Mary’s powers and Kardala-Irene’s powers and the bonds that have dragged the four of them together through hell and back.

Bonds that have tied them together in cars and buses and Colorado cabins and Nevada labs. Through helicopter fights and daring rescues and nights spent in sewers.

Martine may have created those bonds, but they’re not hers.

They were never hers.

\-----

( _Wake up, Nadiya Jones._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue will be up on Friday. I can't believe we're here.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A soft epilogue.

“No, Mom, I’m fine. I’m _talking_   to you. I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t fine.”

Nadiya glanced up at a soft tap on her door. There was Mary Sage, wearing a t-shirt and worn jean shorts and holding a potted plant. She waved.

Nadiya smiled and motioned her in. “I mean, yeah, you can fly out if you want. Aren’t England to California, like, literally as far from each other as physically possible, though?” She paused to give Mary Sage a careful, one-armed hug. “Okay, okay! Call me when you get in, okay? I can give you the hospital address.

“No, Dad isn’t coming. Yeah. He emailed me yesterday, you know how he doesn’t like to talk on the phone. Said he was in the middle of something, but if I needed him, he could – yeah, no. Mom, it’s _fine_. My friends are taking good care of me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled. “Yeah. Looking forward to seeing you. Love you too.”

Nadiya hung up and set the cell phone on the table by her hospital bed, next to where Mary Sage had put the plant. “Hey, Space Cadet.”

“Hey, Reed Richards.” Mary Sage kissed her on the cheek. “How ya feelin’?”

“Less like shit than I did yesterday,” Nadiya said. “Or the day before. So that’s progress. That plant’s not going to last a week – I’ve killed every plant I’ve ever had.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Mary Sage said brightly, settling on the hospital bed with a slight bounce. “That was your mom?”

“Yeah. Apparently she saw the news and decided to fly halfway across the world to make sure I was all right. Good to know that _something_   will make that happen, even if it had to be a life-threatening situation.” Nadiya rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help smiling again.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t going to be perfect, between them, but her mom was making an effort, and maybe that was step one.

“Surprised it took this long,” Mary Sage commented.

“It didn’t make international news until this morning, I think.”

Martine may have shot the screens at the press conference, but Jonesy’s camera had still been up and working throughout their entire confrontation in the back room. She and Grace had retrieved the footage and disseminated it to every news outlet they could. As it turned out, it didn’t reflect well on Martine that she ordered the cold-blooded murder of multiple people on camera. Every security officer in the place had been on her as soon as they could get past her guards, anyways.

Because Martine wasn’t dead. What Mary Sage had done – whatever she had done – had ruptured the connections Martine had had with the former members of the Do-Good Fellowship, as well as the people who’d received stimplants since then. According to the news, she was suffering “unexpected neurological side effects” from what had happened.

“Oh, cry me a river,” Mary Sage had said when she heard. “I didn’t have a choice when she fucked up my brain. I’m not sorry.”

Now, Mary Sage flopped back with Nadiya, carefully avoiding her arm with the IV in it. “We heard from Jamie this morning,” she told Nadiya. “She wanted to know whether it was all true. We said yeah, an’ told her about the whole victim of war crimes protection thing or whatever. Sounds like she’s goin’ back to Eureka.”

“I’m glad,” Nadiya said, and was surprised to realize she meant it. “What about the others?”

“I think Irene’s been talkin’ to Flanagan, but Kardala’s been real cagey about it,” Mary Sage said, snickering. “She did say they were good, though, Addison an’ Flanagan. Figurin’ stuff out. Pridmore an’ Abbey are still hangin’ around. I think Grace got ahold of Joe this morning?”

Nadiya made a sound that she hoped adequately conveyed her utter contempt for and disregard for one Joe Carbinner.

“Aw, shut up,” Mary Sage said, giggling. “I know you hate him, but he got screwed over by the Fellowship as much as any of us.”

“Sure.” Nadiya smiled as Mary Sage’s absent fingers found the bracelet she was still wearing and started fiddling with it. “Has, uh… How’s Remy doing?”

“Not great,” Mary Sage said frankly. “Kinda the same as you. Today was better than yesterday was better than the day before. Somebody called him last night – his brother? He cried a lot an’ when he got off the phone he gave everybody a big hug, an’ he’s seemed a little better since then.”

“And you told him I want to see him?”

“Yeah. Might be a couple days, still. I think he knows it wasn’t his fault, but he’s still pretty messed up about it.”

Nadiya sighed. “I guess I don’t blame him. He probably got the worst of this, and that’s counting that I literally got stabbed.” She settled back further into her pillows. “You ever feel like… you can’t quite believe it’s over?”

“Every second,” Mary Sage said without hesitation. “Shit, Nad, this all started for us way before we even knew it had. I know it’s not, like, _over_   over, with Martine’s trial we gotta testify at an’ everything, and figurin’ out what the hell we’re gonna do now, but… I talked to a lawyer this morning, Nad. A _lawyer_. He said he’s gonna help me get my parents out of jail, and he only had to look at the case file for like, a second before he said there was more hinky stuff goin’ on than it even seemed like at first. Bribes an’ shit. Didja know that forbidding contact with family members in prison without due cause is a crime?”

“No, but it makes sense. Have they found Richard yet?”

“Yeah, as soon as they raided Martine’s place. He’s under arrest too – aiding an’ abetting. And treason,” Mary Sage added. “Sylvane’d be under arrest too, but he’s in the hospital right now, an’ he’s sayin’ he was controlled like Remy. I call BS, but I guess the feds can figure that one out.”

“God, I want to get out of here,” Nadiya grumbled. “I hate having to hear everything secondhand.”

“Hey, Nad, guess what I realized?” Mary Sage, sitting up and grinning.

“What?”

“Now that we’re not on the run, we can actually go on _dates_   an’ shit if we want,” Mary Sage said. “There’s a bunch of real great places in San Francisco. I’ve been checkin’ ‘em out so we can go when you get out of the hospital. Bookstores an’ ice cream places an’ coffeeshops an’ whatever. I dunno, that’s what you do for dates, right? I’ve only been on, like, one, an’ we went to Olive Garden, an’ I left early.”

“That’s one more than I’ve been on,” Nadiya admitted. “But that sounds… really good. And then I guess we’ll have to start apartment shopping, huh?”

“Yeah, eventually, once we know where we wanna live,” Mary Sage agreed. “Plus finding jobs, I guess. But we don’t have to worry about that yet, right?”

“Nah,” Nadiya said. “Let’s get through this first. Let everything reset and settle down. And in the meantime, yeah, let’s go on a bunch of dates.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mary Sage said, and kissed the corner of Nadiya’s mouth. “There’s that old sweet feeling again,” she whispered. “You feel it too?”

“Yeah,” Nadiya said. “I do.”

\-----

( _Tomorrow will take care of itself._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are. I'm so grateful to each and every person who read this, who followed updates, who let me know they liked it. I started this fic eight months ago under the assumption it'd be a short, silly one-shot (we can all see how sideways that went).
> 
> I'm not leaving these kids. I'm already planning on writing a series of post-TOSF one-shots to follow up on them, and if any of you are Critical Role fans, I'm planning a long fic for that, so keep an eye out.
> 
> I love you all. Again, thank you so much. I couldn't be happier with this fic. <3

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is also found on my tumblr


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